The Ambiguity That Was The 5th Of May

I admit I hadn't planned for this, but seeing that I recently revived this blog, I figured what it obviously need the most is more content. Diverse contents, beyond just me retreating back to nurse my wounds each time my head went into an emotional supernova from excessive writing and overthinking personal issues.

I haven't indulged in photography for nearly a year now, with my Nikon D5000 sitting in a lower cabinet in my room eating up stale mothballs. No, I am not a photographer by trade and I'm not exactly all nerdy goggled about shutter speeds, ISOs, and overtechnical thingamajig. My knowledge in handling a DSLR camera is good enough to operate Programmed Auto and a few simple understanding of the Manual setting. My only real concern is capturing the moment and nothing else, so I thought with nothing to do on the 5th of May 2013, why don't I leave the social network behind for awhile and observe outside of what went on during Election Day?

First and foremost, I'm a non-voter out of choice. Call me a fence sitter despite my refusal to name calling voters to an opposite equivalent. Denigrate me all you want for being irresponsible towards the future of this country despite having not made equivalent attempts to demonize those who vote. I have my own reasons shaped from certain things I had read, seen, and experienced around me, which is rather complicated to explain but either way will earn me the ire of both sides regardless. There is room for dynamic allegiance in a democracy without popularly imposing narrow choices in case one found my stance to be ironically troublesome to accept.

When I arrived at SMK Kelana Jaya around 1730 hours (it was right across the road from my apartment), there were still a number of people gathering in front of the barred main gate, signalling an end to voting (polls closed around 1700 hours). Despite the relatively low significance of this constituency, voters were anxious waiting for any news of voting results. Of the hotly contested areas widely covered by the medias from both divide in this country, it seems low priority constituencies like this tend to be ignored, which made me feel glad that I was covering this, even if I was there simply to observe and write on my own will.

This particular contested area is SS4 of Kelana Jaya between MCA and DAP candidates (should I even mention there was an Independent candidate?). Yes, I didn't ask for too many details nor do I find it of any importance to a non-voter like me. People and the going-ons seemed the only relevance to why my presence exist here. Everyone voted for a reason so I asked around to get a feel of what the voters are thinking. Their chief concerns ranged from crimerates to punishing the government for not doing the job they promised to do. Most of these people I've spoken to were largely middle-aged folks who often told me of the good old times when Malaysia was a safer country. One of the aunties even knew personally the robbery victim who was stabbed to death during the Bukit Gasing incident a month back. Other than politics, I struck up an interesting intelligent conversation with a young man seven years my junior. Religion, philosophy, the works. A rare encounter with someone who could render the so-called 'university students' during my UNITAR days into a quivering unintelligible mess.

Voting or not, I found this particular photo op moment too powerful to be passed off. Symbolic to those who still believe, at least.

Pemuda BN making a show of strength, intimidating nearby voters and spectators by circling about with their loud motorcycles. They permanently disperse from the scene as soon as the police showed up. Seeing the relative insignificance of this area, I can already guess it's not worth their unintentionally sponsored paycheck to risk any physical violence.

From time to time, these folks (center, sitting by the table) would come out to announce and update the voting tally for each candidate. Again, I didn't ask too much and chose to simply listen. One of them struck a conversation with me. I think her name is Gene, Jean, or something. It was great talking to someone who actually made me feel Malaysian!

With reports continually emerging of spoiled ballot boxes and other attempts to tamper with the voting process, these voters decided not to take any chances and voluntarily inspect civilian vehicles entering the school perimeter. It was peaceful and everyone was in their best behaviour that even the police did not find it to be a cause of concern.

2100 hours: even though there was still one or two ballot boxes left to count, the results were clear: DAP won this constituency. Five hundred plus votes over the MCA's hundred plus. Should I even mention the Independent candidate with three votes? Sensing it was about time I leave (I had overstayed longer than planned), I spoke to for one last time every remaining people I had the pleasure to chat with, and wished them the farewell. I left forgetting the one important thing yet to be crossed on the to-do list: a haircut. Unlike elections, Haircuts happen once every two and a half months for me. There's always another day for that.

Of course, that's one victory for the opposition, yet elsewhere the votecount continues. Will Malaysians maintain the current status quo, or will they give alternate governance a choice? As the day went three hours into tomorrow, the results were clear: by rusty hooks or by the thousand paid crooks, the ruling government is here to stay. The best the opposition could do is deny a two-thirds majority, square one as they did five years ago. No surprises, no surprises at all.

The Volksraad hurled their proud fists in the air as their zealots cheered "long live the leader!" in celebration of their questionably unquestionable victory. The battered Rebel Alliance kept their injuries bandaged tight and hidden from plain sight, declaring to their loyalists that they are determined to fight on another day even as blood seeped through their fabric dressing. The awful truth is nobody really wins, and nobody ever does. Not as long as we live in a tiny music box which we had repeatedly danced to the same tune. Not as long as we believe free choices exist in two flavours which remains good for the next infinite loop.

Yet I still believe there may be winners still; not the politicians, but the people who tried to make the best of things, and make them happen the best they could, no matter the side they're on. That at least, is a consolation we could somehow agree upon.

Or the warmth of the strangers I met had rubbed onto me and subsequently softened my fervent skepticism, maybe.

"They say truth is the first casualty of war. But who defines what's true? Truth is just a matter of perspective... The only truth I found is that the world we live in is a giant tinderbox. All it takes is someone to light the match." - John Price

Disappointment, Regret

I can't believe I spent nearly a week trying to write a letter to a client telling him that I can't do the job. The problem that kept holding me back from sending that e-mail is my tendency to scrutinize my own writing and trying to be eloquent (by all means, absurd, I know) with my language as much as possible, even if it is merely a formal letter meant for declining a client's job request/proposal. Excessive writer's pride, and that had cost me dearly: the client is very, very disappointed. Put yourself in his shoes, you'd be more or less as pissed off as he is when someone you've given the job to wasted a week of what could've been a completed job handed over by someone else.

The thing is, I can't help myself. I love to write, but I'm too eccentric to be practical with my words in the so-called 'working world'. Things like real estate just won't do for me, but again, overconfidence killed me, and it screwed me up good. My desire to create a strong freelancing career led me to become overconfident and I took more risk than I should. First major screw-up in my still developing career as a freelance writer.

I didn't sleep at all since Tuesday night, and as soon as I reached home by late Wednesday afternoon (after sending that dreaded e-mail), I overslept for nearly 10 hours. Woke up, and I still have a job to do. I've disappointed a client the first time, and I'm sure as hell would not want to repeat this with another client on the list, who had very much hired me for the job. The rolling ball needs to kept clear of steering into bad bumps.

Going Down

"You brought this on yourself"

I think I'm hitting another emotional rock bottom again. It's been going back and forth inside my head since late of last month that my progress to climb out of the pits of despair kept getting delayed, or perhaps the worse, that I am indeed descending back into that dreaded pit on my own will. Maybe I am becoming mentally dented that I started chasing after windmills and white whales thinking it was well worth the time. Even more to fear, what if my parents were right all along, and again, yet again, since my birth to my adulthood, that I will score another lifetime of zero against my parents?

I know four rejected job application isn't the end of days, out of many more job offers that popped up every week through friends and through my inbox, but it does severely affect my confidence to submit my resume for the fifth and sixth time. Besides, what good can an English capable person like me who could write creatively and speak the second language well in a system that demands mechanized symmetry in its workforce? The job market requires robots and biomechanical entities to emerge out of the assembly line with a shiny QC pass hologram. I became self-aware and left the assembly line on my own volition, consequently branded a defect by The System as a result.

As a self-aware entity, I should've been free to pursue my own path and expand beyond The System's pre-assembled destinations, but it seemed The System is keen to punish me for revolting against its conventions. With so much knowledge gained over the past five years selling goods online as well as picking up other skills such as setting up self-hosted websites and installing PHP (at its most basic levels, at least), it would be obvious that kickstarting my own online business seemed like the best path for me to take. Unfortunately, in comes The System with its unbreakable denial of service attacks, where my loan applications are either turned down or simply could not fulfill the required conditions. Again, I'm back in square one wasting off my dying youth in a tiny room. The System is God. The System is your Father. Treat The System as anything less and you'll end up like me.

What if everyone around me saw that I was speaking to walls and blank spaces, but were too afraid to tell me the truth, out of fear that I would spiral downwards even further? Maybe I am turning into Captain Martin Walker. Cognitive dissonance? No real free choices, only assumptions that it was?