Holiday Fatigue

Posted on January 6, 2012 by

Holiday Fatigue – n a form of complain for being tired of celebrating especially during the christmas and new year period. It is a paradox of the kind of feeling one should have for holidays, describing oneself as tired from vacations.

The people who tells me of holiday fatigues have the luxury of doing so. Typically, a holiday is either taking time off to go away or being away from work because of designated holidays. Mostly, I hear this right after Christmas and new year celebrations. And this is usually followed by phrases like “too much eating”, “too much drinking”, “too much sun”, “too many family obligations” etc.

Christmas and new year are never easy times for many. Even for families members who see each other only during these times, it can create friction, bring up old squabbles and cause inmense amount of tension. There is also the politics of who to be with during Christmas for divorced couples and their children, for dating couples and their respective families. In addition, there is always the much dreaded holiday travel, airline strikes, transport closures, unbending weather. Otherwise, there is the pre-holiday stress of beaint crowds to do gifts shopping and the post-holiday stress of illness. Yes, holidays can be stressful and fatigue is reasonable.

Then there are people who has holiday vacum. The times of the year when everyone around them rushed around and complained about not enough time while they try to figure out what to do when everyone is off somewhere. Yes, holiday fatigue is a luxury. When you have family to complain about, you have at least family. You don’t have to worry about what to do, being alone and sometimes, these squabbles are easier to resolve than they may seem when compared to issues such as abuse, drugs and crime. It is also more fortunate than people who have no one due to death, war in their country or abandonment.

People who do not have anyone wouldn’t mind giving anything for that fatigue people talked about. For people who have it, it all seems so easy to those who don’t have it. For people who don’t have it, it all seems so simple to those who have. But in the end, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to be somewhere with someone. If there is a chance to be with someone who loves you, why choose solitutude? If that means fatigue, isn’t it better than resting all by yourself? You may wish it for year but it is also by observation that people who have it for a year, usually have it for a long time. People who choose to be alone for a particular year knows that there is next year. That is luxury.

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To pray or not to pray

Posted on December 24, 2011 by

Christmas is a time of rejoicing and thanksgiving. For the religious among us, Christmas is also time to thank god and praise him. That is the theory.

The celebration of Christmas is the celebration of Christ who was born 2000 years ago to the world to take on the sins of the world and suffer God’s wrath in our place. And As a result, we get access to god to be able to pray to him directly. That is the story.

As a religious person, I have recently turned my back on institutionalised religion. I believe in god but don’t believe in churches. There is a good reason, churches are run by men who are failable and can be intolerable. And we do not needd more intolerance in the world. There are few who are truely demonstrating love to all but few. That is my experience.

My recent experience with praying hadn’t been very encouraging. I prayed quietly for a peaceful Christmas after a year of turmoil that range from financial troubles, losing a job, cancer scare, failing health, losing friends, losing love, almost losing my sanity. And alas, peace was a tall order. Just before Christmas, I was notified that a project that I spent 8 months working on that will allow me to set up a company and be out of financial and work troubles had been rejected for no reason other than politics. That meant my living situation and my professional life will be put into question. The last time I prayed, a guy broke up with me. They may be all good reasons but too timely to be coincidental and definitely divine for a religious person like me. That is my fear.

I do not know how to explain it other than comparing it to having your parents turn their back on you. That I have also experienced. And to have the all powerful smacking you in the face isn’t very auspicious is it. In fact, it is getting very difficult to say if life throws you a lemon, make a lemonade. Once, twice, thrice, you can laugh and find humour in it. Fourth, fifth, sixth, it is not so funny. Seventh, eighth and ninth, I’m all wet. Tenth, I’m desperate to just stay down. That is déjà vu.

Most atheist would ask, so why do you still believe in God? Most Christians will say, God will not suffer you more than you can bear, just trust. The agnostic will say, just leave it alone already. I don’t know how to unbelieve. It is called a leap of faith as I learnt. I also do not know what it means by leave me alone because everything is part of a divine plan. But it is awfully difficult to say trust that it will end soon. The light at the end of tunnel might turn out to be the light of an on-coming train! That is doubt.

It is not a pretty year with 6 more days to go. Most people will say, it’s nothing. I remember this familiar feeling 2 years ago, sitting at home unable to move and counting the days. Many things can happen in 6 days. I just want to take cover. I’m looking forward to a new year but if someone say to me things can’t be any worse, I can only say, yes it can and I know exactly how bad it can be. Do you want to pray about it?

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Who needs help in “The Help”?

Posted on November 4, 2011 by

Who needs help in “The help“?

“How do you feel raising white children while you leave your child to others?” That w the opening line in the movie “The Help” based on the best seller of the same name. I have not read the book and didn’t want to before I saw the movie. Without prejudice of the written word, the movie was both funny and moving and I can only imagine how good the book can be.

It tells of the stories of black women who were engaged in white middle and upper class families as house helps. They work 6 days a week taking care of the children, cleaning, cooking and groceries buying. It is also set in a time where white people and coloured people had to use separate entrances, eat on different tables and go to different schools. The story is familiar. There are those who are prejudice and there are those who aren’t and those who didn’t dare say anything. Then there are those on the other side who can be bitter, fight with their dignity or keep it ‘real’ quiet. Sure the movie is a ‘feel good’ movie sugar coated with possibilities. But in its lightness is also a wealth of tears and making the right the wrong. There’s never 1 side to a story and I think the movie has done justice to the different faces of truth.

Yet, how different are we in the present day society? Sure we don’t have separate toilets and we claim equal rights. Do we? I come from a country where a large percentage of families have lived in maids. They come from another country leaving behind their children and family to take care of those who engaged them. They look after the children, clean up after the elderly, kept the house orderly and put food on the table. They live in tiny rooms with the family in not so big apartments. Some are good help and some aren’t so great, some employers are kind and just and some not so nice. I’ve seen well educated, sensible and intelligent women in the working world who become unreasonable employers, shouting at their help when lunch is a few minutes late or when they see their helpers take a breather with a glass of water.

The white women in “The Help” had no jobs. It was a time when women don’t really work and their mothers only want them to marry well. So they had no mission in life other than their house and children. Perhaps that pushed them to lose perspective. Today’s women want it all. They want a career and a family and children and nothing wrong with that but something’s got to give. So they engage help for cooking and taking care of children. Here’s where I don’t understand, for all those who had suffered under the hands of unreasonable employers who demanded extra hours irregardless and for those who complained of long hours, unjust pay, how did we then end up being the mean boss to the help? I call it the maid syndrome. Given the power to manage another’s life and being your own boss suddenly took reason out of logical, top minds. A dollar spent has to be worth it, so we milk every effort we can from the help.

The movie post that important question, how are these children who are raised by the help? How do they learn from their parents or not? How is a whole generation of people affected by this and a whole generation of children who had their mothers left them to take care of other children? I don’t know and frankly, I don’t want to know or be implicated. Cross my fingers.

In the end, let’s respect the dignity of work. Those who put in the money to procure work and those who work to earn it. Whatever the work, the help at home is earning an honest living and deserves the same respect. They had no choice but to leave their children behind to earn money, they deserve the respect just like anyone who works. They are working to give them the ability to love those they love the way they want so let them. Next time you want to complain about the sofa not clean or the food is not cooked right by your help, if you have one, think again. They are not perfect and neither are you. There are good days and off days and they are still human. You can put in your management skills and help them. They also deserve medical insurance, year end bonuses and increment. If you can master up some objectives and key performance indicators, why don’t you, before shoving words down their throats about what’s not done right.

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To profile or not to profile

Posted on November 4, 2011 by

In my job, I profile people, for various reasons. Mostly, I read people to help them find the best ways to learn or to work in groups. I’m crap at many things but at reading people, I’m great. Mostly it’s because I’ve been trained to read people since young. When you have a psychologically unstable mother, you learn to read signs, to survive and to avoid trouble. So I read people.

But I don’t read my friends. Recently, I had a chat with some friends about my work, stripped away the corporate structure and the job titles, what I do is essentially profile people and then achieve corporate goals by influencing people. And I said I switch it on and off in life, that means when I step out of work, I just switch back to default “no read” mode. I don’t know how but it’s what I do. In our long drawn out questions on how I do it, I realised that, I do read my friends, couples in trouble, friends who are unsure of career moves, friends I can’t find a baseline with, I read them and I find explanations for their behaviour.

I’m surrounded by non-planners who are also touchy feely. And I’m a planner, do you know how stressful it is for a planner to have no plans? A stressful as asking a non-planner to make plans. For them, fixing a date is a cage and for me, not fixing a date is free falling. And on top of that, they are touchy feely, they have to feel right about doing something. And I just want to think about it, mark it down and not to think about it anymore. So it is with much amusement (and pain) that someone like me is surrounded by touchy feely non-planners. And I must have the most unfemenine profile in comparison. It ceased to be funny after a while. So I have to read them and them orchestrate a response that will work for them and for me. For example, how about we keep Tuesday or Wednesday evening free. We could have dinner or watch a movie or do something that you feel like on that day. On my end, I keep my Tuesday and Wednesday free of plans so when my non-planner friends feel like it, we’ll be able to hang out. So yes, I guess I read people.

I think it’s the most manipulative thing you can do and nobody likes to be handled. In some ways, when my friends are upset with me, this is what they say most of the times. Because, I also make it quite clear that I’m responding by the way they respond, it’s less elegant than at work but more direct in how I would like a friendship. In my defence, I’ll say I seek to understand so we can construct rather than to blame or be upset that can be destructive. Usually, this doesn’t happen with my male, thinking planning friends. Life is easy on the same plane. We plan, agree and move on. No feelings hurt, a simple can or cannot and how about.

But I love my touchy feely non-planner friends. Because, they are the ones who feel on my behalf. When I have good news, they are happy and when I’m in trouble, they worry. I live my precarious tumultuous life through their feelings. If I’m bullied, I don’t have to be angry because they already are, when I get lucky, they are excited for me while I think about it as just another day. They will spy, track and stalk a guy on my behalf and then curse, swear and hug me when a guy does me wrong so all I have to think about is getting over the bad patch. When I have a roomful of my touchy feely friends with me, I can get as excited as I want and when I tell them my recent stories, I can think calmly about consequences when they are taking over all the necessary emotions. Once, I had to calm my lawyer down who was pushed to feel injustice on my behalf even though I was the one being wrongfully accused. It’s quite refreshing actually.

So I wouldn’t trade my touchy feely non-planner friends. But I guess I do profile them to attain a certain peaceful daily existence. You know that I know that you know right? Peace.

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Tolerable Intolerance

Posted on September 9, 2011 by

Tolerable intolerance = a state of being where prejudices are realistically acknowledged and tolerated with considerations to fair treatment. The opposite of denial and pretence and acting under impulses of prejudices.

It’s 10 years since 9/11. I’m not sure how many people this event affected but I guess everyone in this world is effected in one way or the other. I don’t know who started the spitting contest, but some one definitely did. I don’t know if we have ever learnt from this event, I hope so.

During the last American presidential election, I asked, why is it so significant for a “black” person verus a “white” person? Not that I had forgotten the the civil war in america or the emancipation of slaves. Nor would I ever be unaffected by the book that changed my live called “To Kill a Mocking Bird”. If education has provided me anything, it was introducing me to this wonderful book. So I was not naive but perplexed because we have to be ever so careful with Americans on the use of terms. There are racist terms, gender bias terms, there are so many politically incorrect bombshells you can step on in a conversation with them. And the election opened my eyes.

Let’s face it, there will always be biases. (alright, I wonder how many politically incorrect rules I would break in this post.) I’m serious. Some people prefer blue to red, long hair to short hair, tall people to short people, man to woman, woman to man, we all have our biases. That’s what’s beautiful about the world because we are not all the same. If Hitler had his dodders, there would only be blond people with blue eyes left. If genetic engineering advance further, all parents would order the same kind of babies, high IQ, no defect, perfectly proportioned body and limbs for greatest aesthetic outcome. My own politician had widely declared that people with arts and social sciences degree are useless people. Students should learn to be engineer, doctors or lawyers. For practical or non practical reasons, let’s face it, biases exist.

This is not a perfect world and people will have biases and prejudices. Now this is where we wake up and say to ourselves, fine, I have certain biases but will my judgement today affect another person because of these biases? That I think is the key point. If someone is being rejected a job because of the colour of his or her skin or gender without consideration on capabilities, that is a problem. On the other hand, would this person really want to work in a place where there is a majority of a certain type and face potential failure just to prove a point?

My hero Atticus said, we will never know someone until we step into their shoes and walk in it.
I believe we can change the world but just look into your back yard before charging around with hurls of injustice. Have we been fair to people around us? Accepting them for their differences from us, embracing their differences? And I don’t even mean the obvious race, gender issues. I mean, just differences.

Voltaire said, I may never agree with that you said but I will always stand up for your right to say it.

Is that our spirit when it comes to people in general? If so, why do we have to be so politically correct if we truly care for human kind and their well being and accept each other as they are? I thought that was the purpose of human rights, only when you decide to take away someone’s right by force and violance or violate that social contract are you punishable by law?
Maybe I’m generating or idealising. But I thought 9/11 10 years anniversay is a good time to reflect upon that. How did the spitting contest started and can we learn from history and do no more harm.

On the streets, I’m not unfamiliar with this. I’ve been stopped so many times by people who would tell me I’m not welcomed in their country and I should just get the f**k home. It’s their prejudice and all I can feel is sadness for them. Some of them may be having a bad day, some may have had their jobs taken away to be moved elsewhere. So they took a cheap shot at me. But I was not bodily harmed and I’ll tolerate it. Because, I’ve been fortunate. And I honestly don’t think they feel much better after that anyway. Like a friend said, after all generations of suffering of some people, if they prefer us to us use certain politically correct terms, I’ll do it. But let’s not pay lip service only.

But what is not tolerable is bullying. Physically harming and taking away the rights of some just because they are weaker, smaller, different, not of a certain colour, doesn’t appeal to the bully. And by the way, that happens in our back yard. It starts in school, when someone who didn’t like the way the other person look decides to bully them. If you’ve been guilty, if you’ve protected your child who has committed such act, you are guilty. And let’s just widen this to the responsibilities of the CEO of a company and further up, the head of the country. And then I implore you to consider, when you point your finger at someone, 4 fingers are pointing back at you.

Let’s really wish for world peace shall we, not just because it’s the most used phrase in beauty pageants and political speeches but seriously, world peace.

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Say it with “The Language of Flowers”

Posted on September 7, 2011 by

The Language of Flowers by Vanesa Diffenbaug

Did you know that moss stands for maternal love? According to the Victorian dictionary of flowers, that is. Imagine putting a round of moss on the baby’s head before leaving her. That’s what the character, Victoria, in Venesa Diffenbaug’s book, The Language of Flowers, did.
The story is about the meaning of life told through the language of flowers. That a flower, a word can mean so much and replace the unnecessary. It is a lame simplification of the book really but that’s how I felt when I read the book. Sometimes words are too cheap. It is also a book about motherhood, friendship, love and family without convulusion and told simply. Mostly, it’s about the desire to have a child and the harsh reality of motherhood.

I often wondered about my mother, what she had in mind when she was pregnant and how she felt when the romanticism of being a mother met the harsh reality of motherhood. She made her choices and for years, I often asked myself if she ever loved me throughout the disintegration of our relationship till non-existence.

Then I read the book. The chapters alternates between Victoria at 10 years old and at 18 yers old. At 10, she was facing her last chance to be adopted and this is with Elizabeth who taught her the language of flowers. At 18, with no kin nor family since she was left at the orphanage as a baby, she was building her life with defiance with fierce defiance from social workers, the orphanage and the system. As a child without a mother, she was difyent, prickly. This is her way of hating herself when the eternal questions comes to mind. If your own mother does not love you, who else can?
Elizabeth turned out to be a patient and kind adoptive parent. Using the language of flowers, she own over the obstinate Victoria at 10 but the adoption did not go through. Cut to Victoria at 18, with her gift of flowers and a few kind people who were willing to give her a chance, she found a way to make a living. She in turn used her gift to help others.

The book is also littered with commercial breaks like a lady who came to Victoria looking for flowers ot help her love life. For that, she prescribed purple lilac, red roses and bounded with rosemary, first emotions of love, love and commitment. I have to say, I did the same last weekend but could not find rosemary.

It is a simple and strange book. The meaning of flowers alone makes it a curious read. What I most admired of this book is the author’s treatment of tricky relationships and her lack of attempt for a big bang ending to sugarcoat life or the temptation for a tragic ending that can turn into a tearjerker. The drama is kept in check and told simply, succinctly like the meaning of flowers. The characters and the future speaks for themselves, without any help for gimmicks. You just want to throw them a bunch of mistletoe, to surmount all obstacles.

As for me, I want tulips with baby’s breath. I won’t say what it means, you’ll have to read the book.

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The book that “Never Let Me Go”

Posted on August 20, 2011 by

What would be the difference should we know we will live till 30 or 80? I’ve read “Never Let Me Know” by Kazuo Ishiguro during my obsessive goal to read Times list of 100 best novels. Recently, I watched the movie made based on the novel. The story telling of the original words with the imagery of good direction and cinematography refreshed my memories and added depth to the flavour. It is a rare occasion when a good book and a good movie come together to a tantalising result that is both bitter with regret and tender to behold with and aftertaste of unsurmountable questions that I cannot even begin to answer. That is how much I love the book.

Under Ishiguro’s master, the science fiction setting becomes a believable reality whose only purpose is to illuminate the relationship of 3 people, Ruth, Cathy and Tommy and their love story. Their fate written since creation by other human beings and the value of their lives is only marked by their body parts, their death is imminent and their days limited. They come from a school called Hallsham, everyone in that school were taught they had only one purpose in life. Everyone knew how long they can live, it is not 80 or 60 or even 40. It would be around 30 or earlier. This is their undeniable dignity with a rumour that if 2 people were really, sincerely in love, it can be deferred.

Imagine living in a world where your destiny is written for you. Would you strive to live life to the fullest or find it pointless to do anything? In that limited timeframe, finding and having love became a more urgent agenda. The love triangle of Ruth, Cathy and Tommy became more regrettable as they battle with limited time for maturity and self realisation, selfishness and resignation, forgiveness and finding truth.

I learnt this through television, Don’t wonder why people go crazy. Wonder why they don’t. In the face of what we can lose in a day, in an instant, wonder what the hell it is that makes us hold it all together.

So what is the difference between us and the children of Hallsham? We who have no idea when we will die, how we will turn out, what our future brings; we who have choices to choose, to have time to improve, to figure things out, to find love. Do we?

I suppose the only difference is we have family, someone gave birth to us. Other than that, anything goes. For those who have a loving family or surrounded by people they love, then life is something you don’t want to let go off. Didn’t someone also say, if you have nothing to fear, you have nothing to love. So I have that sneaky feeling, that we are let kites flying in the sky, with one end of the string tied to people who love us and we take turns. We never let it go and they are the anchor that let us fly high.

Dylan Thomas wrote quite simply, do not go gentle into that good night. Don’t you want someone by your side, to cheer you and tell you, fight, fight, fight, there is something to fight for?

Thus, the ingenuity of Ishiguro. The limitation of time and destiny determined sheds all distractions and made life decisions more pronounced. The only way to defer death according to rumours is that they have to be in love, really in love and prove it. So it was rumoured. The undertone of hopelessness only climaxed briefly when the rumour was rebuffed. Only then, did a character screamed briefly for the anguish of time lost while 2 people found their way back to together and the limited time they had left. It was only then that they learnt they never wanted to let each other go and had to learnt how to let go of life without letting go of each other.

I wonder at that. Someone I know who is beloved passed away suddenly recently. He had so many people who loved him and didn’t want to let him go. If life is fair, then maybe i could transfer some years to him for his loved ones. It would make at least a dozen people happy and would have caused no pain in others. But life is as such. So we deal with uncertainties, the future unknown and try to find the courage to live through it. Let there be people that never let you go and if you have them, never let them go. And always let them know.

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