The Bricklayer

There was a big pile of bricks on the floor.

She looked at it, and without a word, started to arrange them. Brick by brick, she slowly arranged them neatly on the ground.

The new pile began to take shape, and passer bys would ask her what she was doing. She gave them a strange look and said I'm putting bricks together.

They asked her what it was. She replied with a shrug and continued.

Sometimes she threw away bricks that were broken, sometimes she kept them and added them to the pile. Layer by layer, it began to take shape, and after two years, she deemed it worthy.

They asked her why she stopped, why it is now worthy.

She said her job is complete. She only wanted to build a foundation.

A foundation to what, they asked her.

Another shrug. A foundation to whatever, she said. It can be anything, everything. Whatever it wants to be. It is now time for it to build itself.

It can be anything is wants to be. I believe it can. All it needs now is to believe in itself.
as

I Miss

Writing God-awfully long letters and emails.

Standing outside in the rain.

Making music.

Driving for hours.

The sun.

The sea.

Being somewhere else.

Writing news stories.

That feeling when a book writes itself.

Winter.

Random people, all around the world.

Coffee (not the stuff I make)

Running, Swimming, Hiking

Going somewhere new

Connection

You

Clean and Free: BERSIH 2.0

People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.

Alan Moore 

Firstly, let me just say that I love my country, and for all its flaws, the current government did see us through many tough times over the past 50 years. If you don't believe it, let me just ask you, how many of us were severely affected by the recent economic disaster that saw unemployment rates in the U.S. rise to 8.9% (Wiki)? For comparison, during the same time period, Malaysia's highest was 4.1% (TradingEconomics).

Still, there's so much that is not right, so much that could be right, and so much that should be. I am not advocating reformation, I am not advocating we march and disrupt peace in our capital. What I want, what I believe in, is, plain and simple, democracy.

Democracy, that's all. That's all we want.

I won't tell you about that day; you probably already know about it via unbiased media, but here are some pictures I took.

Home

My brother is leaving to the U.S in almost exactly a month. I can't help but think that we are so similar in so many ways. My other personality, the talkative one, the child-like one, the one who plays computer games, comes to the fore especially around him. I guess that's what little brothers are for.

He's leaving, and I just realised that I would be diminished somewhat by his absence. He's a part of the support structure in my life - the people who are ever present and always around, the ones you take for granted because they never go anywhere. My life is stable and I stay grounded, all thanks to people like him.

I wonder why it never occurred to me sooner.

I used to think I'm overly optimistic, and overly carefree; a boy who reads too much and dreams too big. I just realised that I am allowed to be who I am, because of all these people, the support structures that each and everyone of us have in our lives. They provide the stability that I need - and never understood - and in that stability, allowed me to want to go out and just live, with the knowledge that if ever I needed to come back, home will always be there.

And that, to me, is the truest sense of the word home.

Home is not just where your heart is. Home is wherever these people are, the people whose hearts are for you.

It's nice, having some place to always come back to.
as

Words, Hands, Hearts

Words. Hands. Hearts.

Three words that could very nearly sum up everything that has happened in my life the past year. Very nearly, because this is one of those times that they are not enough.

I don't like goodbyes. I like the opportunities that come with it, the excitement with knowing that life is moving on. I even like the part of missing someone, be it a friend or someone more, because then you know that they mean something in your life, and you fight to keep that bond ever more alive.

This year I've had to go through a list of goodbyes, friends leaving to dangerous places, and even more, saying goodbye to someone very close to my heart. It wasn't easy, it will never be, because if it is, then that person definitely didn't mean much. I won't say my heart broke, because most people don't give the heart the credit it deserves. And even if it does, and it will one day, in the words of a song:  a heart that's not worth breaking, isn't worth not much at all.

Really, your heart is stronger than you give it credit for, so take a chance. And if it ends, then, let go.

Let go. It's not an instant change. Letting go is not about throwing your now directionless love away. It's not about trying your damnedest to forget memories or putting them in the strongbox of your mind, locking it and throwing away the key, afraid of the contents and how they will make you feel. It's not about throwing yourself into the arms of the next waiting person, not about smothering that feeling of emptiness with sex or drugs, because to not do so will be to actually feel.

It is everything that is opposite. It is a journey that takes much time and effort. It is about not being afraid of how you feel. It is about knowing that you loved that person, and knowing that you can still do that without needing reciprocation, because that is what it was supposed to be. It is about growing when you're alone. Letting go is about cherishing the memories, but not being afraid of making new ones. 

It is about knowing that words, handwritten together on the tablets of both hearts will always, always be details in your fabric.

And in the end, that's it. Just words, hands and hearts.
as

23 Years = 8395 Days = 201480 Hours

This place has been kind of bleak, kind of like a place hopes and dreams go to be run over by a car and left to die...

All that is going to change, hopefully.

I have officially seen 23 years today. 8395 days. 201480 hours. That's a lot of hours. Even as I am writing now, another one goes by. As is tradition, I go back through the year and try to break it down into words, try to go back up memory lane to see what I've done, and what I would redo, and maybe even what I won't do - a kind of playbook to make the coming year better. This year, however, will be different.

This year, I am going to count my blessings. This year, I am going to remember everything that made me smile, everything that gave me fulfillment, and everything that made me grow.

My calling in life found me over the past year: to change lives through the written word. Opportunities have come my way, even when I didn't knock. People showed their love, and I made some more life-long friends. Life-long friends showed the reason they will always be in my life, though miles may come between us. My family remain my pillar of rock and, in their silent way, gave constant encouragement.

I've loved, and was loved, and for that I will always count myself as blessed amongst men. For some reason a local newspaper hired me and I saw first hand the broken landscape of our media. I've traveled to the beautiful land of England, a childhood dream, and I enjoyed every freezing second of it. Through this all, God has been good and I can sense a new season approaching, along with the closing of this current one.

People come and go, lessons are taught and learned, a way found, lost, and found to be eventually lost again. The past year has been quite a ride, and more living has been done in this one year than I ever did in the past 23. You say 'this is sad!' but I say at least I found this out at 23.

I remember saying something here, something about older but not wiser. That was true then, but I can safely say this time around that I am older, and I am, finally, a little wiser.

as

It's 5.30. It's quiet and peaceful, no sound but the drone of my fan. The room is dark; the light from my old laptop barely illuminating anything but my fingers on the keys. It's 5.30 and I can't sleep. Maybe that's a good thing. I review the work I've backlogged, thought about my attempt at writing a book, thought about inking my body, mentally went through what needs to be done the next day (actually today). I just cleaned my room of the things that I've accumulated over the past year - threw some away, kept some in cold storage. Sleep is a waste of time. But then again, maybe a few hours of blessed oblivion is a good thing. I've not been paying my debt. Or maybe, given my dreams lately, I may never sleep again. Scary things, those dreams. Twisted, but at the same time, it paints my subconscious in vivid technicolour. My subconscious and I are very well acquainted now. There's no music, rare, because I don't want to disturb the quiet, which is ironic, because in itself the silence is disturbing. I want to talk to someone, which is a very rare feeling for me. I am usually very at home with my own thoughts for company, but tonight, I guess I feel a little lonely. Can't remember the last time I felt this way. In fact, I don't remember much of the past few years. Which may be a good thing. In a few years, I'll forget about now. It's not a weakness, to admit to being lonely. Humans are social creatures after all. I remember thinking at one time, about all the places I wanted to go, how beautiful it'll finally be when I do eventually get there. And then, I opened my heart a little and realised that those moments will be hollow if there was no one to share them with. A picture won't reaffirm my existence, nor words. People will. So, no, it's not weak, admitting to being lonely. The darkness is a comfort. It hides much that I don't like to show.

as

Killing God

I drove along, lost in my thoughts and almost ran a cat over today. After some screeching - some by the car and some by the cat..and a little bit by me - my adrenaline soaked brain went into overdrive and increased the speed of my thought processes...

Anyways, to my point. The near accident - near, because I succeeded at saving one of the cat's nine lives but almost lost my only one - got me to thinking:

How does God feel when we reject Him?

We are all familiar with the whole basis of Christianity - Jesus died that you might live. And for many of us, it's enough to just believe and accept Him, and we're on our way to heaven. But it's lacking somehow.

This year, I learned that God is crazy about you, in a way that you're crazy about the person you love. He's eager to please you, to give you little gifts, He wants to spend time with you, quality time, not just a few mumbled prayers before sleep. He wants you to be the best person you can possibly be. He wants to be a priority in your life. Isn't that what everyone wants? To mean something to someone, to know that someone is thinking about you all the time, that someone can't get you out of their heads - and they're not even trying to.

That's exactly what He wants, a very human kind of love - an imperfect kind of love. I had trouble trying to understand that He was crazy about me in that way, and then, when eventually I figured out that He wants to be wanted in that very same way, it just blew my mind.

The sad thing, though, is that I don't. I don't yearn to spend time with Him the way He does with me. I reciprocate His intensity with ambivalence, with nonchalance and a blase attitude.

You and I know how it feels, to be not wanted. To hope, to feel, to yearn and to bleed, to want with all our being, and to have all of it, returned with nothing. We all know how it feels to be rejected, how deeply it affects and warps and hurts.

And that's exactly how He feels.
as

A Fragment

I remember I had this dream, last year. In it, I was walking on a beach, a very long stretch of beach, my footprints imprinted in the sand, echoing for miles behind me. A wave rolled in (or the tide, I'm not sure) and washed everything away.

I have nothing to follow home. And I remember I stood there a while, not knowing what to do. I woke up before I found out if I actually had the courage to continue walking forwards.

I'm sure I am not the only one, but I fancy myself on an endless pilgrimage, a journey of sorts. Why? I don't know. A journey will eventually lead a person somewhere, somewhere not here, and maybe sometimes, that's the problem.

What's wrong with here and now? Why always the yearning to be somewhere, anywhere but here? I'm always planning to go on journeys, a few which I've taken, a few which I dare not take, but all of which are physical, take-to-the-roads kind of journey. I don't know if I'll ever be satisfied with somewhere, or maybe eventually,  I'll find a here that will be better than any somewheres.

The point is, I am reminded of my dream. I am losing sight of who I was, and no matter what the media says, who a person was is very important. I don't know if I took new steps forwards. And if you asked me who am I now, I can't give you an answer.

Why go on pilgrimages? And when will it be enough? I just finished The Zahir by Paulo Coelho, and eventually, the protagonist - who was on a pilgrimage of sorts - does come to the end of his journey, but not in a way he expects, and definitely not in a way I expected. It's just, so frustrating - to me, the reader at least - to know that after the long walk, the product at the end is broken, unworthy of the long walk.

Or maybe it was always broken, and the pilgrimage only enlightened me as to its incomplete state.

as

The Room in Our Heads

courtesy of  thoosah

Sunlight, warm and bright, streamed through the open window, bathing the small room in gold. It was quiet, no birds sang, no leaves rustled, silence except for the relentless ticking of the bedside alarm clock - a device he both loathed and treasured.

He stood at the doorway of the room, leaning against the frame, hands folded, his eyes taking in - drinking, absorbing, breathing - the peaceful scene and drawing patterns in the air as they fell on random items scattered about the room: the dresser, the many items on the dresser, clothes on the floor, clothes on the bed frame,  clothes on his laptop, the infernal alarm clock, and books, books everywhere, books on the dresser, on the bed, on the table outside on the balcony, even on top of the air-conditioner (what the heck was it doing there?).

Every item with an inadvertent story attached to it: here was a top she had loved, the pile of mixtapes on the computer table (which was violently colonised by other foreign objects like cups, books, an old wallet, with no computer in sight) with significant songs, the book she had thrown at him in a fit (that's why it was on the air-cond!), the overflowing trashcan filled with crumpled paper from his writings.

The walls were filled with photographs: one panel with pictures of random places and scenery, another panel filled with pictures of people and food and art. In a nutshell, that was the difference in the way they both viewed the world - he as a place to explore with breathtaking beauty while she found breathtaking beauty in art, culture and most importantly, people.

The shadows were lengthening, the golden glow in the room was leaving. He stood there still, wondering if he should take anything with him, wondering at all if he should leave anything behind. Wondering if the room in his head held a deeper meaning or if there ever was a meaning. Wondering if there was more room in his head, or if this was it, this was all there is.

He took only an envelope, everything else he left there; there was nothing he could take, and even then, he had taken them with him as best he could. 

So he turned, shutting the door just as the last rays of the sun touched the room and disappeared, plunging him in darkness. He locked the door, dropped the key into the envelope, then slid the envelope back under the door.

And left.

as