Dictatorship: Origins~

Due to recent events concerning national politics, it had become evident that there's something deeply wrong about this nation. Observations concluded that my generation appears to be trapped between a government- that exploit their people for their own benefits in terms of wealth and authority, and the people who would most probably do the same if they were in the same position of power.

A rally was formed to spread awareness of a simple agenda and the people divided themselves into different sides- some for, some against, mostly for the wrong reasons.

I met a few people who were against the movement and asked them why they were against it. Their response seemed to be based on inaccurate facts. Facts they were simply told. I told them to go do their own research into it before making such silly judgements. Which they did, and despite knowing the truth, they still preferred sticking to the first thing they were told, and treated anything different with suspicion.

If one were to simply observe, one would notice that people like this do exist. These people believe one side over another simply because it was heard first.

How did this happen? I came up with a few theories:

1. Lack of evidence for what was heard first. A fact without evidence is very weak, and need to be defended. When contrary evidence presents itself, it is destroying the first, thus, a threat. Primitive I know. It's amazing we managed to believe the earth is round at all.

2. Our education system.

We all know how the education system here uses the "spoonfeeding" technique to boost high scoring students. Sure it would make us all look good, but at the cost of our nations' future.

When a student is learning, they take the data, process it, then shit out some facts based on that processed data. Spoon feeding however, skips the data and the most crucial part of it all- the "think on your own, you dumb shit" part.

Think of it like eating food. We eat the meat, the veggies, fruits and nuts and all that. Our body then digest it, extracts the (mostly) good stuff, and pile the unwanted stuff altogether with things it needs to get rid of. The rest, as you know, explodes out the back door.

The mind kinda works that way too.

By spoon feeding our students, the education system is basically feeding our nation shit so they could shit out shit. Then by observing the latter shit, they conclude that the student must have eaten some good stuff.

But that's missing the whole point isn't it? We send kids to school to learn to think, and we should therefore rate their achievements based on how well they could think, not regurgitate.

When you raise and educate them that way, you're pretty much training them to "shut up and follow". I suppose in the best case scenario, you will get a nation of people who are only good at shutting up and following.

The cure for our nations' cancer lies in improving our education system. You should help develop us to think and express our opinions. To come up with our own understanding of how things should be. To criticize, comment, and be critical in our thoughts- even if it is against you. And if one day you succeed in making us all thinkers and we made an intelligent decision relive you off your position, you will step down.

Because you work to serve us.

Till then, the sheep would settle for any shepherd.

Hang on a sec~

We have reached a very interesting age in mankind's civilization haven't we?

I found that civilization grows by understanding concepts.

To put this into perspective, imagine travelling back in time say, around 500 years ago, and try to explain to people then what "google" is.

Today, we all know what it is. (note: it is safe to say "ALL" because those who don't won't be reading this anyway) We may not even know what it is categorized under, but we would at least know how to use it, as intimately as how we know to eat, i might add.

We can describe it with two words now: Search, Engine.

What would we need to describe it 500 years ago?

We can't. Well, not easily at all. In order to explain what google is 500 years ago, we would have to explain a few concepts beforehand.

Here are the concepts in reverse order

the web < internet < monitors < keyboard < computers < electronic < electricity.

Hell, once you've done all the explaining, you're most probably gonna get either strange looks / thrown into prison for witchcraft / worshipped as a diety. (Not to forget that they're not gonna understand it anyway)

Best case scenario is that you're gonna develop a reputation as being a divine messenger of the god Google- he who knows all and can provide answers to millions of questions simultaneously.

Pretty cool yea?

We can go further tho.

Let's say we artificially inseminate a young, unmarried chaste women. That would sure confuse the hell out of them.

-But damn. Angels would've beaten you by 1500 years.

Or we give them an ipad with built in wikipedia and teach them how to use it.

-Still nope. Angels beat you to that by a few thousands of years. (unless you dont make it look like the tablet is made of emerald, you may have a chance)

Why not just pick one out of the crowd and give some 1 on 1 tutoring on how everything works?

-Grr... angels again. And they let him write a book about it too. Thank you Mr E.

Let's just keep it simple. Pick a tribe, and help em out with their wars. Should be pretty easy right? All we have to do is fly some planes over and drop some bombs. They would retell the stories of how our glorious birds smite their enemies with magical stones for aeons!

-Oh wait. Angels got that covered too.

But hang on a sec...

These were events of a different age.

If these angels were to do that now,

How would we pass the story down the generations?

(When asked what i think angels are, i'm gonna say it's me with a time machine)

Proud-ness~

Do you know anyone who claims to be proud of their pride?
Just give that a second or two.

Proud of their pride? How does that work?

What else can fall under this category?

Too fat to diet. Overestimating humbleness.

I actually think that the source of this problem could stem from the confusion between their understanding of "self confidence" and "pride".

Adding on to that, it may also include the confusion of understanding between "proud" and "arrogant".

People who take pride in their proudness could therefore be finding satisfaction in being "confident of their arrogance".

I think people take pride in their pride when they actually have nothing else to feel proud of. It's a dangerously blinding cycle.

I write this based on self reflection, so if any of you took it personally- don't get into the habit of thinking everything's about you.

Magic~

Magic is wonderful until it is understood. We love it. We breathe it. We dream it true every single day.
We have integrated it so deeply in our minds that we can openly believe in magic without even admitting to ourselves that we do.

We are at an age where we can accept facts that are more ridiculous than Disney fantasies.

There are powerful symbols in this world. So powerful in fact, that for those who know how to look, can find it as a cause and end of most wars. By being exposed to it alone, one could invoke clarity or madness in a person, and the difference depends on the order of the symbols the individual was exposed to.

For those who wield these symbols, happiness, grief, sorrow or pain could be commanded into another.

Most wielders takes years to learn these symbols, and decades to master them.

The true masters of these symbols have actually wielded them to changed the world to their own liking.

The use of this power is hardly a secret however. we are all capable of mastering the great symbols. All 26 of them.

It's not even that difficult to figure out what i'm talking about. But if one only managed to figure it out at the end, one would realize what magic really is.

Magic resides in not understanding.

I've been told by many that they do not believe in magic, I can only believe it if it comes from an atheist.

The hidden aspects of gaming~

Most people don't understand this, but gamers can actually learn a lot about a person based on the games they like and dislike. When gamers meet for the first time, they always ask each other about their favourite games, and by favourite, we mean games that left an impact. The experience that they keep in their hearts.

Here's what you hear:

Gamer#1 : "One of my favourite games would be.... Final Fantasy 7"
Gamer#2 : "Same here!"

What information was exchanged between the two?

"I have lived a life as Cloud Strife, teamed up with Berret and Tifa in a group called Avalanche to take down the largest corporation in the world because it was killing the planet. Later on, we were joined by Yuffie, Vincent, Red XIII, Cid, Cait and not to forget, Aerith.
We ended up fighting against a powerful warrior who had help from the ancients (also had a terrible god-complex) which took ages.
I spent countless hours with these people. I knew them. They were friends. I was putting in more effort than my parents could ever understand for our common cause.

We succeeded.

We miss Aerith.

And i loved every second of it"

"Same here!"

Things in the Draft~

Everyone has words in them. Some are kept for themselves as secrets. Some wait for the right moment to be delivered.
Everyone has those they know will never be delivered. They composed it a long time ago, and once in awhile, would take it out to edit it. Refine it, for years and years.

These words know to whom they are meant to be sent to. The receiver's information has been filled, but the send button would never be pressed.

Things in the Draft.

Buah buahan tempatan~

Found a notebook of mine from Year 10. It contained an essay that i'd like to share here (also to keep as a digital copy).

We were told to write a letter to a friend in a foreign land, about the buah buahan tempatan.

Been wanting to do this for ages, but never found the will to do so.

Today i found the book half soaked because of a water container malfunction so i'm gonna do it now.

Ahem.

***

Buah Buahan tempatan.
By me at a much younger age.

Ke hadapan sahabatku saudara Joni yang kini berada di Bangladesh dengan selamat sejahteranya.

Apa khabar wahai saudaraku yang berada di tanah Bangla. Saya berharap saudara akan selalu sihat sejahtera. Saya tahu akan sebabnya saudara sembelit selama lima bulan. Saudara tidak makan buah-buahan!

Oleh itu, saya telah menghantar surat ini untuk bercerita suatu cerita buah buahan.

Pada suatu masa dahulu, terdapatlah sebuah pokok durian. Pokok itu dipercayai boleh menyembuhkan berbagai jenis penyakit. Cerita ini tersampailah ke telinga si musang. Musang ini sedang sembelit teruk, ia sudah sembelit selama enam bulan. Lalu ia pun bercadang untuk pergi ke pokok durian itu.

Ia tiba di hutan lalu menjerit, "wahai rambutan, saya seekor musang sembelit. Tunjukkanlah saya arah pokok durian ajaib"
"Ke utara, wahai sang musang sembelit" jawab rambutan itu. Sang musang sembelitpun terus dan jumpa pokoknya.

Pokok durian itu amat besar dan tinggi. Ia terdapat banyak durian tergantung di dahannya. Sang musang bertanya dengan pokok itu.

"Wahai pokok durian. Si rambutan memberitahuku bahawa kamulah pokok ajaib. Saya memohon pertolonganmu. Saya sudah sembelit selama enam bulan. Kurniakanlah kuasamu kepadaku untuk menyembuhkan penyakitku."

"Baiklah" jawab pokok itu, "tetapi kamu mesti membaham dua biji manggis dan sebiji rambutan".

Musang itu pun mencari buah manggis dan rambutan. Ia terjumpa pokok manggis dan membaham empat biji. Ia pula kembali ke rambutan kecil itu dan membaham ia dan sebiji rakannya. Ia pula kembali ke pokok durian ajaib dan jatuhlah sebiji durian dan ia menghempap perut musang itu. Hilanglah kesembelitan sang musang.

Itulah ceritaku wahai saudara.

Sekian,
My Name.

***

I still remember my teacher calling me up to the front of class cause he was terribly annoyed-yet-impressed at my piece of literature. I got a pretty good 20 out of 25.

I'm not gonna tell you how old I was when i wrote this.

The subconscious code~

Had a dream last night.
In it, you were gone.
You didn't just leave me, you left all of us.

It was an accident.
...a road accident.
I didn't see it. But like dreams go, i just knew.

Everything felt so real.
I knew you were gone.
All i did after that was staring at your facebook page, reading messages left by your friends and family.
Many came in. Saying they're lonely now that you're gone.
Saying they hope that wherever you are now, they hope it's a better place.

Each one of those updates sent shockwaves of disappointment through me.
I kept on expecting for an update from you.

I did the same with your twitter page.
Although it didn't move at all.
I stared and begged the universe to let me see an update from you.
To wake up and realised that it was just a dream, and everything's fine.

Fortunately it happened. So i woke up deep in thought.
I know that dreams reflect on our subconscious.
That there's a bigger lesson to be learnt from all this.

As i sit here now writing about the event itself, i realized the hidden message from my subconscious:

I love the goddamn internet.