Tag Archives: culture

Resignation as an adult

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found this on the ‘Net. looks silly, but it has a deep meaning. i like it….

Subject: Resignation

To whom it may concern:

I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult.

  • I have decided I would like to accept the responsibilities of a 5 year old again.
  • I want to go to McDonald’s and think that it’s a four star restaurant.
  • I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle and make ripples in a pond with rocks.
  • I want to think M&Ms are better than money because you can eat them.
  • I want to lie under a big oak tree and watch the ants march up its trunk.
  • I want to run a lemonade stand with my friends on a hot summer’s day.
  • I want to think a quarter is worth more than a dollar bill cause it’s prettier and weighs more.
  • I want to go fishing and care more about catching the minnows along the shore than the big bass in the lake.
  • I want to return to a time when life was simple. When all you knew were colors, multiplication tables, and nursery rhymes. When I didn’t know what I know now. When all I knew was to be happy because I was blissfully unaware of all the things that should make me worried.
  • I want to think the world is fair.
  • I want to think that everyone is honest and good. I want to believe that anything is possible.
  • I want to be oblivious to the complexities of life and be overly excited by the little things again.
  • I don’t want my day to consist of computer crashes, mountains of paperwork, depressing news, how to survive more days in the month than there is money in the bank, doctor bills, gossip, illness, and the loss of loved ones.
  • I want to believe in the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, dreams, the imagination, Santa, the Tooth Fairy, a kiss that makes a boo-boo go away, making angels in the snow and that my dad and Superman are the strongest people in the world.

So……here’s my checkbook and my car-keys, my credit cards and the bills too, my 401K statements, my stocks & bonds, my collections, my insurance premiums, my job, my house and the payments too, my e-mail address pager,cell phone, computer, and watch. I am officially resigning from adulthood. And if you want to discuss this with me further, you’ll have to catch me first, cause,

“Tag!”…
“You’re it!”

Cultural gaps in our society

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I am in a cultural analysis mood today.

One other cultural phenomenon often cited is the moral degradation of our youngsters. The topic that brought me to think about this was a facebook discussion thread titled “Lelaki Melayu Bermasaalah” by a girl called Akmal Fairuz who complained that young malay boys are uncouth and describes them as “tidak bertamadun”.

whilst the misbehaviours described by akmal fairuz is not confined to one race, i think the root causes are similar.

personally, i think there is a huge cultural / mindset gap between the “elders” and the “youngsters” today.

forgive me for generalising, but i believe that elder malays (and malaysians) tend to be very conservative, and constantly espouse “traditional values” etc.

youngsters, on the other hand are far more open to the global influences (internet or not).

elders constantly talk about censorship of movies, websites, music etc. whilst to me this seems impossible and is a regressive step backwards in denying the changes that is happening in the world today.

because of this, there is a sense of rebellion… an anti-establishment attitude, “i’ll do my own thing, i don’t care” type of feeling amongst youngsters.

i remember my days as a teenager… the teachers, the rule makers are those people who you would dare and defy. why? because we no longer liked being told what to do (like primary school kids & babies).

i think this is a natural reaction when we are growing up and trying to break away from being a baby/kid to being a grown up. at that point we think that because grown ups set the rules, so if we were to be grown up, then we would have to break existing rules and set rules of our own.

for a conservative society in a global village – these current norms are topics that will be seriously challenged & tested. but being conservatives, the elders feel that youngsters have no right to challenge their authority. thus creating this huge cultural / mindset gap.

as elders, do we listen, engage, and properly advocate our views with the youngsters?

i think not. we live in a society where the elders tell the youngsters what to do. the gap is quickly growing to become a gulf. the sooner we have open and honest debates about this issue, the better.

The problems in present day society

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The recent tragedy of Nurin Jazlin Jazimin, 8 years old (al-fatihah) gave me cause to think about the society we are becoming today.

Being a self-analyst deep down, i pondered long about the tragedy: how can somebody commit such a heinous crime on such innocent children? what motivates them? what are the external factors? has the police profiled such crimesters? why do they become the monsters today?

I would like to live in a place where my children are safe to go play in the playground or ride their bicycles around our neighbourhood. but cases such as these would only cause the undesired reaction of more people locking themselves out in the home and minimise exposures outside… which only leads to a more insular and silo society: it is a vicious cycle which needs to be broken. getting people to fight a common cause is going to be more difficult which the ever increasing “every man for themselves” attitude of our society.

So why do these crimes happen? seriously i do not know, nor pretend to be an expert. but being a self analyst, i believe that we all have to look deep down within ourselves. no, i do not blame nurin’s parents… i would like all of us to see the faults we have and how it manifests itself in our society.

Why do people want to inflict pain on others? i believe that every person fundamentally is compelled to do this. We scold others, because we have been scolded. We put pressure on others, because we are being pressured ourselves. And we hurt others, because we are hurt. The difference between us is the level of pain.

Make no mistake, i hope and desire to see nurin’s murderer and others like them to be severely punished and with pain here in the hereafter. Yes, i want them to suffer, because i share some fraction of the pain felt by nurin’s parents… as i am a parent myself.

It is a vicious cycle. But sometimes i feel that we have ourselves to blame. The first thing we should do is to stop hurting others. Except for very few circumstances, it (hurting others) is not warranted.