futile

i think i'm a cross between an idealistic slacker + a materialistic yuppie. both carries the want of more money, more challenging work, more beautiful things, more love, more time to travel, more time to read good books, more time to watch dvds + sleep, more time + resources to do social work, more time to do an mba or another degree. i want to do everything, yet nothing. to be everything, yet nothing. i can't quite figure out what is it that i want or i think i lack. i don't know if it's because i'm confused, i'm too busy or simply because i'm having my pre-mid-life crisis.

in case you haven't experience a real pre-mid-life crisis. let me share with you, it's actually very simple; everything just suddenly goes into crisis mode. alarms get triggered, code red everything. you start wondering where you are heading with everything you do, everything you are, everyone you're with. i have become rather moody, temperamental, unnecessarily emotional ... now that i think about it, it sounds like i'm experiencing a prolonged pms or is it an early menopause or am i becoming an artist? :op

of course i do talk myself out of this neurosis but half of the time the accumulated wisdom seems to abate. you, renegate! deserter!

it's a bit of an escapist mentality but being able to get away, out of the daily routine once in a while really helps to ease my stress. being in a totally strange environment for the first time, embarking on a new adventure never fails to put me in a surreal frame of mind, completely pulling me out from reality for a while. if only i didn't have loans to service, bills to pay, i'd make travelling for vacation or simply escaping a monthly affair, especially now. if only ...

yesterday, i read gavin yap's column with interest. i was just pondering over it the night before - what maketh a malaysian?

if you didn't read the column, gavin wrote that a friend got him to read a blog criticising him for the article he wrote on weak handshakes. the blogger condemned gavin for not appreciating the fact that firm handshakes aren't part of asian culture + therefore it was unfair of him to lash out at fellow malaysians who do not subscribe to it (don't worry gavin, i have firm handshake). a valid point but the blogger went on to say that the sheer 'ignorance' had made gavin unmalaysian. gavin touched on 'issues' like accented english, not picking accents after being abroad (as sign of not socialising, thus it's better to study locally? tsk! tsk! tsk!), a face that doesn't match a name being used to determine the level of malaysianness. gavin concluded that they should not matter because we are where cultures meet.

(hmmmm ... do you think this friend of gavin would stumble upon my blog + ask gavin to read this blog as well?)

*wave @ gavin yap*

anyways, i do agree with gavin that they shouldn't matter but for a different reason - they are all superficial.

i use me as an example. i'm more comfortable writing in english than malay. i've got more western clothes in my wardrobe, with less than 10 baju kurung + kebaya put together. i did absorb some foreign cultures during my student days. but in my heart + soul, i'm as malaysian as can be, my attitude towards many things - family, relationship, social interactions, money.

to me it takes more than window dressing, a person's malaysianness is something in the heart.

you know when we as a society insist on worrying about irrelevancies, it only reflects on the depth of our thinking. and such lack of depth does not bode well for the future.

i'm reminding myself too.

i leave you with 'social drugs' by lauryn hill