Nothing wrong?

Tunku and Think Big, Melbourne Cup winner, 1975.

I remember a time when I was a pre-schooler. In front of the family black-and-white TV, I got all excited when a horse appeared on the screen. Maybe they were screening Mr Ed, the talking horse or something like that. I must have said something to the effect of, "I saw many horses the other day. Appa took me there!" looking directly at Amma. That is when the fight started.

True. There was a time when Appa used to frequent the racing turf club for little thrills and pennies. I was brought there, only once, I presume, before I spilt the beans. 

Naturally, over the years, I became convinced that horse racing is terrible and the negative association with betting. Slowly, one by one, as in an all-or-none, everything was laid upon me. The first drop of alcohol would turn you into a raging alcoholic. One deep breath of nicotine would damage your lungs irreparably. At the tender age, when all of one's focus should be on securing a sound education, there is no place for romance, so I was told. 

Then the others told me that there was nothing wrong in racing horses. Even the Prime Minister owned a horse that won the Melbourne Cup. Students were treated to free tickets of screening of 'National Velvet' starring Elizabeth Taylor for Merdeka. It was a tale of former jockey helping a young girl prepare a wild but gifted horse for England's Grand National Sweepstakes; like it was alright to compete in horse racing and winning the lottery.

Then the local television tried to say that drinking Guinness Stout, a strong brew, was good for you. After a hard day's work, one deserves a Stout. The boisterous men at the local toddy shop that I saw on my way back from school did not testify to that.

The TV also told us, young kids, that when you are out of inspiration, grab a stick of John Player Classic cigarette from Pall Mall. Ideas will ooze copiously, and before long, the unfinished portrait will turn out to be a prized possession.  

Slowly, the media started showing teenager themed movies where teenage boys are expected to develop feelings for the opposite sex even though they are barely able to support themselves, what more handling a relationship and the by-product of the biological process of an adult. Still, they said, there is nothing wrong. It is normal.

It is normal to be frequenting races, betting, indulging in intoxicants, pre-marital sexual liaisons and even teenage involvement in adult or illicit activities. One develops character, they said. 

Slowly everything became acceptable. It was alright to bend the rules to accommodate mediocrity. Failure was not rebuked but rewarded. You do not need a couple to be opposite genders to unite in holy matrimony. Neither do they need a father and mother unit to raise a child? And they wonder what went wrong?

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To know is to know that you know not!

My mother was dead sure 55 years ago that her predicament was induced by poverty. She blamed her father for not ensuring that education was given importance to the girls of the family.  In his case, he generally thought that school was quite a waste of time when precious time could be used in the workforce and the continuity of survival. She was crossed that her husband did not have the means to give her pleasure of sitting haughtily cross-legged on her throne as the mistress of her own home but instead had to be contended to make other people's home tidy and clean. She cursed the stars that she was born under that cast a spell that it was necessary to bring in a second source of income to her young family. 

And then that happened. It was a series of maladies that were destined to happen as she ventured into her family life. After nine months of carrying an apparently normal baby boy, she delivered a stillbirth! Scrutinising the lifeless stillborn child, she noticed dark marks on his cheeks and back. All through her grieving period, through the consoling words of her friends, she thought she came to learn of the reason for her loss...

Slapped Cheek

She remembered that day, vividly. The bus had arrived late, and she was rushing to her workplace. To reach her destination on time and to avoid embarrassment in front of her contemporaries and employer, she, in her obviously pregnant state took a short cut. It involved walking diagonally through a Christian graveyard. As fate had it, a funeral procession was in session. She felt a cool zephyr pass by, and suddenly she felt an intense feeling of apprehension as she approached the crowd. She passed it off as tiredness of pregnancy, the heat and her fast-paced movement. A few weeks after that episode, the mishap happened. Her world came crumbling down. The loss of a male heir to rewrite her life history came to zilch. No one could give her a decent explanation for her loss.

Thanks to her street-smart, worldly friends, there was closure. It seems that the Grimm Reaper, in his zest to recruit more souls to his side, was on a wild hunt at the heat of the noon sun. An easy prey was standing in from of him in the form of a gravid mother. All Satan needed to do was to give a tight slap on the fetal cheek and back and voila, another one bit the dust, another soul to the dark side.

Everything fitted in fine like lock and key. She had another reason to be melancholic about life. Poverty drove her to work, braving the sun and graveyards to make ends meet. And impoverishment made her lose her child. That was her understanding of her loss. Life moved on. She went to deliver three other children and the grace of God and her unwavering loyalty to the Almighty. 

In her mind, everything made sense. She, in her gestational state, should have known better than to venture into sensitive areas, like a graveyard where restless souls looked for company. What more, at the height of the time when the sun when it is at its peak above the head! It was her fault, she thought, but she justified her actions and the outcome of her fate.

Little did she realise, she never came to know until her second-born who later made it to medical school enlightened her on a condition called 'slapped cheek syndrome' or 'fifth disease' caused by a virus (Parvovirus B19). It was known to cause stillbirths. It was inconsequential, anyway. Much water had passed the bridge.

One does not have to know the truth, the whole and nothing but the truth to carry on with life. Even though it is unimaginable, life was still going on planet Earth when its occupants though that their planet was a flat pancake. Just like the explanation of interference of unknown forces only work fine for my mother. Many things were accepted with simple, which now seems mumbo-jumbo, explanations. She agreed to the fact that one cannot know everything and some stones are better left unturned. It gave her closure to meet another challenge in life.

Socrates was quoted to have said that 'to know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of real knowledge'. The problem is how far you want to go to seek the truth. Somehow, one has to draw the line somewhere, pacify himself with his limited knowledge and move on to do other things in life.

"What I do not know, I do not think I know"Socratic paradox.

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Can you handle the Truth?

There he was standing undecided what to buy. He knew exactly what he wanted to buy. He knew how everything worked, right down to the low down nitty-gritty details. He knows where the nuts and the bolts should fit in. He knew what is the latest gizmo in town and what is the newest 'kit in the block'. And he knew how much each item costs. In short, he knew the good, the bad, the ugly and anything in between. But yet, he cannot decide on his latest gadget that he wants to lay his hands on.

The Smoking Man of X Files: Are you sure you

want to know the whole truth? I do not think you 

can handle the Truth! 

Item A is superior in one aspect which is less efficient than item B but is more pricey as compared to item C which in turn is more durable than item D and the list goes on. At the end of the day, he is at his wit's end on what to do next. The thought of losing his hard earned money to a sub-standard merchandise is unacceptable in his book. So he waits. The trouble is that this is not the first time he is caught in this type of conundrum. Again and again he feels fleeced as he always knows that there is something better out there!
His neighbour, on the other hand, never had life so good. With his newly gained windfall, life cannot be better. He sees something, he likes it and he buys it. Simple.
I guess that why they say ignorance is bliss. Things are easy when you are ignorant like what the Beatles said "Living is easy with eyes closed"! (Strawberry Fields).
Surprise, surprise. Even in the 3rd century BCE, the fear of information overload was suggested by Seneca the Elder who lived during the reign of Augustus, Aurelius and Caligula. His son, Seneca, a philosopher, served Nero but was forced to commit suicide when he was accused of conspiring to poison the Emperor!
This fear was highlighted again when Gutenberg's printing press took the world by storm. It was thought that man's ability to absorb all those vast information and to be able to make quality decisions was suspect.
Words like 'information glut', 'infobesity', 'infoxication',  'data smog' were thrown in as time went on and ICT opened the floodgates of information.
A learned man can be a confused one. The thin line separates the ingenious and the insane. Many things were left unanswered to be discovered by ourselves and for us to draw our own conclusions. Perhaps, the level of ignorance amongst us is the only quality that help us to be level headed and be level on the ground we stand on. Ignorance is the driving force that makes the human race want to explore and makes us reflect upon ourselves and our fellow earthlings.

FG says that deciding to buy something is like ordering in a Chinese restaurant. After finalising on your order, you would realise that the Joneses at the next table have a nicer more palatable-looking spread and you wish you had ordered the same. The same can be said about life partners unless it is decided at the end of a shot gun! It all comes in a package, the good, the bad and is all at how you look at it.