Eilif Peterssen - Summer Night, 1886
Source : Wikipedia
Echoes
And so last week, I felt, was a week full of chicken noises.
Monday, a relative of mine, suddenly went berserk with his own religious interpretation of things, which I deemed insane, as per entry http://firdaus-9898.blogspot.my/2017/07/small-talk.html
Then there was this issue of Shell girl.
Followed b this issue of a Muslim girl with her dog. http://www.themalaysianinsight.com/s/6767/
As usual, everybody started shrieking like little chickens.
Including an online friend of mine.
A lady.
As usual, she started bashing males all over for being stupid. When I commented, she told me I was being apologist, then I told her, I'm against stupidity, but hell, don't over-generalise all men..and somehow I felt tired of explaining things
Then the second issue blew up, and she went into rocket-firing mode. She started bashing JAKIM, her logic is Quran comes first before Hadith, and Hadith is something that is...does not need to be followed?...only Quran is obligatory...and so forth. Since Quran does not forbid dogs, so why must we follow Hadith.... <== her logic.
From the time I started knew her, she was Anti-Hadith of some sort, hence this time, I knew well, that explaining things will only tire me, so I just kept quiet.
And I quietly removed her from the friendlist, and blocked her.
Why so harsh?
Last week, I was cruising the road with my small motorcycle while listening to Joe Satriani's Surfing With The Alien (mp3 player).
The sun was setting down, the orange brightness and the nearby gloominess nearing darkness.
It was then, I was captivated by this track "Echo", the last song from that album.
from Surfing With The Alien, 1987
After maghrib prayer at nearby musolla, I drove my motorcycle to a "romantic sight" nearby my house for a little time with myself, around 8pm or so.
I looked at the sky above, with the stars, planets and their moons, and God knows what and how much up there,
all glitters, and somehow, a thought came to my mind,
hey look at all those glitters, those are big mega things, and yet they moved around,
those big things, with their big issues and big agendas,
all moved silently
in a space where there's no sound,
where those lights might light years behind,
and those beautiful lights might just be echoes.
While I'm here, in my small planet, where most people are noisy and rocket-driven, shouting and screaming to get their points across,
they might resort to bombing cities so that some leaders might agree,
and yet,
those big things up there move in silence and echoed in lights.
And so that's why I just kept quiet, blocked her FB from mine, as if our lines no longer intertwines,
and you know,
one day one of us might die and we all will stop communicating too,
so why not?
Suddenly I feel at ease, and remembered those who do stop communicating with me, for whatever reason there is,
I no longer blame you, and I now understand the feeling.
Whatever happened, as those things that is happening, will sometime in the future to come,
be memories, and just echoes.
Still Another Day: XVII/Men
The truth is in the prologue.
Death to the romantic fool,
to the expert in solitary confinement,
I'm the same as the teacher from Colombia,
the rotarian from Philadelphia,
the merchant from Paysandu who save his silver to come here.
We all arrive by different streets,
by unequal languages,
at Silence.
by Pablo Neruda
from Surfing With The Alien, 1987
Eilif Peterssen - Under Salmesangen (In the Church) (1878)
Source : https://eclecticlight.co/2016/05/17/into-the-light-eilif-peterssen-a-norwegian-impressionist/
Effortless
I learned this "effortless" thing from my wife, my sister-in-law and some female friends who are into elegant fashion, and the trend in the "tudung" / scarf fashion now is the Neelofa scarf.
And so, the catch here is, beauty itself is not a stand-alone quality, for beauty to become "elegant", it has to become "effortless".
The "effortless beauty", or so to speak, the element here is actually on being "natural", trying not too hard to look beautiful, the beauty has to be somewhat effortless.
If you type in Google "Effortless beauty", you can see for yourself.
Effortless is portrayed as a positive adjective, and it is cool to "look" effortless even though the action itself is hard to do.
For example, every soccer fans "wooohs" and "waaahs" over a cool flick at the ball by a player, a basketball player look cool when he tried to score that unbelievable 3 pointer, being effortless never cease to amaze and wonder people.
Eilif Peterssen - Lake Fishing, 1889
Source : Wikipedia
I remembered a story, told by my senior when I worked together with him in a shopping mall project.
There was a time in the company, where there were two senior engineers, that was about to be promoted to project manager, my senior and another guy.
Most site personnel seldom reports to office, they usually do it weekly and maybe once-a-month (to collect paycheck hehe). But there was this slight difference between this other guy and that senior of mine.
That senior of mine, was always "quiet" whenever he came back, he just smiled and had his cool persona, light heart jokes with colleagues, and then whatever discussion needed to be done, will be held personally 1-to-1, if it is with boss, they'll smoke outside and chat, or tea-time,
if it is with the accounts or HR, then keep it brief and simple...
The other guy, I was told, always came back to office with a "drama". Meetings will be held, there will be an "aura" in the office signalling his attendance, he'll be busy with stuff, printing this and that.
Even though the other guy looked busy and productive, my senior was the one promoted.
In this working life, not only you have to deliver, but you have to look "effortless" in delivering the results, if you want to go to the managerial level and above.
That's why, my senior explains, why most of his friends in construction, sleeps 3-4 hours daily in their homes, because they are busy preparing things for work. Never stay up late in office, hide your effort, deliver your results "effortless" ly.
The problem with generation nowadays in reading this, maybe, they emphasized too much on the style and look and not on the result. This is stupid, like wearing a cool blue necktie without wearing any shirt ie. naked.
“Rushing into action, you fail.
Trying to grasp things, you lose them.
Forcing a project to completion, you ruin what was almost ripe.”
- Lao Tzu
- Lao Tzu
from the 1998 Crystal Planet album (my first Joe Satriani album)