Do the thing you do!

Uncle Hooi at his best © The Star

I remember the barrages of concerned pep talks from my family members when they discovered that I, at the tender age of 43, slowly started indulging in competitive distance running. In not so many words, they were obviously trying to tell me that I would just drop dead by the roadside to be found by passersby as if I were just roadkill.

Another old friend, obviously overweight and looking much like Peter Griffin of the 'Family Guy' fame was even generous enough to offer free anaesthetic services as and when I need a knee replacement. 

As a last resort, my family went ahead and gave me a 'stress test - CT angio' combo as a birthday present on my 50th birthday. When the cardiologists gave a clean bill of health after silently cursing under his breath for wasting his precious time from his more deserving patients, they essentially gave up and let Nature take its course. 

This must have been what Fauja Singh must have gone through when he took up serious running at the age of 89. I can imagine how people would have mocked him. How people can be cruel with their words... 

"Living on borrowed times, and he is asking for trouble!"

"What is he doing? Should be playing with his grandchildren."

"He should be making peace with his Maker, not running around like a young bloke"

Uncle Hooi (pic above) is a regular feature at the place my friends and I frequently run on Sunday mornings. Starting his solo run as early as 5 in the morning, without fail, at a steady pace, he would cover a distance of 20km effortlessly at his springy age of 82. He must have been ridiculed behind his back for missing all those late Saturday banters and parties that last till the wee hours of Saturday night- Sunday morning. He must have been labelled as a party pooper for precisely the same reasons.

Fauja Singh, 107, Turbaned Tornado
Photo courtesy santabanta.com.

Others mean well and say things that they think would make change for the better. They feel that it is their God-sent duty to do so. At the end of the day, everybody has to use their God-given faculties to decide what is best for them. When we falter or make a wrong decision (immaterial whether it is in accordance to their advice), they have nothing to offer but sympathy, maybe crocodile tear and perhaps, words of comfort that God works in mysterious ways.

Some enjoy the attention of being sick and like to immerse in the sympathetic display by the loved ones. Others use their disability, perceived disability or faked ailments to garner a soft spot. And a few convince others that they are indeed sick to give their two cents' worth advice, to sell their products, to gaslight them down or just to have a conversation going. For them life is so mundane, they need to irritate someone.


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https://www.facebook.com/groups/riflerangeboy/!

Nothing personal, it's just for the nation.

Tun M tried it once, and now in his second lease of life, he is at it again - wanting to change our mindset to be tuned to the frequency of the Japanese. Their zest for improvement and perfection cannonballed them up from a nation devastated by the pulverising effects of a mushroom cloud to morph into the second biggest economy in thirty short years.

Somehow, we are deeply immersed and soaked in our mediocrity and lulled with self-glorification that even if we look at the Land of Rising Sun with awe, we remain faithfully as the Land of Twilight. For it is at the twilight of times, do we all become lethargic.

Gandhi, among the many things that he admired about the Europeans, includes cleanliness and punctuality. He went as far as to say that stickling to time made them able to rules countries timezones away (paraphrasing).
One of the virtues that skyrocketed the Japanese to great heights in discipline and keeping time. Go to any railway station and one can understand. A minute in the arrival of their train is a national crisis. Trains come on time at the dot of a second.

We, Malaysians, shamefully prescribe to the dictum, 'better late than sorry' but with a twist. We are late, we say sorry profusely but mean not a single word of it, and we would do it again without an iota of guilt. We do not bat an eyelid when we are stood up because we do the same. We apologise and a new slate. Queserasera.

Should it also be happening at a public domain level? Go to any bus or even no-frill airport terminal? One should think that, at least in the aviation industry, with their association with multinational concerns, some of the traits of timeliness would have trickled down. But hell no. I guess the lackadaisical Asiatic outlook and the humid tropical lethargy overpowers the desire to be prompt.

Try flying Firefly or Malindo from Subang (SZB) like I sometimes have to do for short trips. I think I may have some authority of sorts to vouch for their laggard performance on the punctuality department. Passengers would soon realise that the joke in on them after weaving and needling through the streets of KL to reach the airport just to be informed that their flight has been delayed. (Reasons: Pick your choice, as if anybody can fact-check; non-arrival of the shuttling planes from the other side, technical problems, inclement weather and the latest I heard is: a traffic jam in the KL skies!) You will end up arriving too early after all, for the umpteenth time.

More flights tend not to fly on time. No amount of profuse regrets is going to improve the hospitality. Both sides know it just lip service, mere little pacifiers. The apologies do not reflect the service providers' genuine inadvertent lapse in exemplar spotless work record but their inefficiencies. We all well versed with the Malay 'bangsawan' movie dialogue that goes, "beribu-ribu ampun, sembah patik harap diampun..." And we know they say it as a matter of figure of speech to think of an excuse to their undoing.

Have pride in your work. If you find it too complicated, perhaps you could leave it to others to manage. At this juncture, Peter's Principle comes to mind. In a hierarchy, people tend to rise to "their level of incompetence." Thus, as people are promoted, they become progressively less-effective because good performance in one job does not guarantee similar performance in another. In Malaysia, we also have a term. It is called 'jagoh kampong'.

"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."  Arjuna, upon being shown the power of the Vishnu (Vishwaroop) in its full glory, is told by Krishna, "kalo'smi loka-ksaya-krt pravrddho" [Thou seest Me as Time who kills, Time who brings all to doom]. Is the scripture telling time is the One which controls the worlds? Hence, God is Time and Time is God. 

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Post #2000

Sculpted by devotion?

@PawanDurani This Brahmana is from Melukote. Carries water for abhisheka from the Pushkarani down below to the Yoga Narasimha temple atop a hill. A steep climb of 300 steps, plus added distance from Pushkarani. He has been at it for decades now, 4-5 times every day. Body sculpted by devotion.

https://twitter.com/Tasveer_wala/status/949470952240250881

This is more than a mere photo story. The servant of God takes upon himself his divine duty to carry water up to the temple. In simple terms, he is the modern-day Sisyphus. He carries the heavy load of water up the hill every day without actually having a target. He would never be able to fill up the hill or have a deadline when his repetitive duty would end. He takes the 'job' as his Dharma, his reason for his existence. He carries on this selfless and endless mission with the primary gain of finishing his job. He has to find happiness within the act of completing the job, knowing very well that the monotonous and arduous task needs to be repeated, again and again. Perhaps, it is just better for him to continue the duty at hand subserviently, without asking the meaning of it all. Look at him. He displays the full glory of the beneficial effects of his physical exertion, a well-crafted body and probably pink of health. He may look forward to continuing his job the next day, thinking that there would be no one to continue his legacy.

Would things still be the same if he were to overthink and starts automating? What if he begins outsourcing, delegating or hiring to do the same? What if he devises hydraulics? The physical work may be done,, but the fringe benefits? Perhaps that would explain the meaningless (in our minds), repetitive chanting and rituals associated with religious practices -to stay focused. Whether the physical act of doing the chore has any definitive meaning, that is another question. It is not the action but the effects. Just thinking...

Thanks, AqS and SK for tickling my mind.

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Listen, do you want to know a secret?

Tariq Ramadan, a liberal Islamist, once asked the Dalai Lama, "Why do you recite your chants at 4 o'clock in the morning?". The wise one replied, "It is for my self discipline!"
That, I think, my dear friend, lies the secret of mankind. The secret of all secrets is now out in the open. The rationale for people to do what they do as somewhat ritualistic, obsessive and compulsive like is actually to instill self discipline in one self. The purpose of prayer is not to request the Creator for wealth, health, happiness and protection for a pain free life and after life but rather to instill this human value so that he can think out rationally his next course of action so as to ensure he leads the path of least resistance. The quiet ambience in which one partakes his meditation and prayers must be the cornerstone for his to rationally think out his actions and act accordingly without rash.
The ritual of allocating one day in a week for spiritual work, faithfully doing seemingly repetitive actions several times a day, sitting in a literally in a spine and leg breaking postures are all for the sole purpose of self discipline.
"Self discipline for what?" you may ask....
Self discipline to do what you are suppose to do on earth - a butcher, baker or tin-can man. Whatever you may do to maintain that equilibrium on the big jigsaw puzzle that is a fragment of events of the butterfly effect of life.
But remember, too much of self discipline can also be self detrimental. As Buddha (before Enlightenment) was finding for the ultimate truth to relieve Man of the tortuous repetitive cycle of life, he discovered that meditation was the way to go. He dwelled into high level spiritual form of meditation where one can control autonomic nervous system of body where Hone can go into  a vegetative state without food and water for days. If not for a young girl who fed him forcibly, he would have been history without leaving a mark!

N.B. Did you know that the trace of Buddha had disappeared from face of India, no thanks to the attacking Hindu and Muslim kingdoms? It took archaeologists of the colonial masters from 1860 to 1890 to locate his birthplace as Lumbini and Kapilavastu where his father's Shakya kingdom palace used to be. They pinpointed it to be located in Nepal.