In Malaysia, this song is a bit famous due to the Enchanteur advertisement during the 90's.
At least it was famous to my bro and I, when he taught me the intro of
this song with acoustic guitar.
Title : Le Vie en rose (Meaning :The view in rose, a reference to seeing the world through rose-colored glasses)
The famous scene of this song was in Sabrina (1954) where Audrey Hepburn sings it in French.
My health is getting better.
And I felt thankful of it.
Maybe the reason of all the sickness, wars, sadness is for us to be thankful for the lack of it.
I don't know how to put into words what I've been feeling.
Maybe it's content-ness, maybe it's "not to give a damn",
but it felt soothing somehow.
Silence must be deafening to some, but to me, we should be thankful for the lack of noises.
One of the goodness in it, is when someone decides to give a call or a chat, it felt warm and nice.
Like a pinch of salt, a spoon of sugar.
Then saying few things, and going off afterwards, you'll feel like missing it.
You just embrace that particular moment.
You'll know if you call again, or if you meet again just soon enough, the intensity is lesser.
I think I was correct when I laid down certain terms in this blog.
The idea behind this blog is always about "view".
When you see a view, a photo, you felt like speaking to it but you couldn't.
If people like it, they like it. If they don't, they don't.
It doesn't matter much what they say.
The view will just be there, undisturbed.
When I quit my job last 2012, one of the idea was that I want to become a writer.
I'm glad I didn't.
Somehow, I didn't feel "nice" about it. It felt too noisy.
When I go to bookstores nowadays, there are millions of books by local Malaysian writers.
If you want to write, you either be one of the two.
1. Fictional
2. Non-fictional
I'm suck at both, and I know I shouldn't bet my life being a writer.
And I was saved by what I saw, which was the immense insanity of people in social media wanting likes and attention.
First, I saw it as a trap. Wanting attention, wanting to be famous is a bit of trap. It is because somehow, you'll be fixated to gain attention.
You'll do what it takes, and spend hours trying to make perfect of your whatever trade, and for what?
Then you'll get into un-necessary things like debates, talks, chats and etc's which will consume your time, effort and attention.
Up to this moment, I see the maddening world of opinions.
There are people in Malaysia whom got angry when Donald Trump barred the entry of Muslim from 7 countries.
But I think they forgot, what is their view when those Muslims were in Malaysia begging for money?
Some of my friends spent time in FB talking about politics, about Islamic country, DAP and things like that.
They like to say words like "bingai" which means stupid in Malay, and their sentences is a bit harsh sometimes.
One
of the guy in the cybercafe I frequently go, wears the Islamic
white-cap, plays Youtube videos of Islamic things loudly, then took a
rest outside puffing cigarrettes.
And what I did around 2013 then was, I got into a job in construction, again.
I was tired as hell. I had to travel 50km daily.
But, whenever I had time, I would read things, or write things back then.
Whenever I had an idea, the feeling I had is always to "write on rocks what you feel".
And so, I just put it in blog, and as time goes by, I realised that the representation of the idea is important.
Put some photos here and there. If possible, get a an under-lying theme.
And it feels innocent again.
It feels like a project, but a lovely one.
It doesn't matter whether people liked it, as long as I liked it, it'll be fine.
It will be something like a view in rose.
For me, personally, this "la vie en rose", does not have to be about love.
Even though it feels like being in love with someone, the longing, the warmth and so forth.
I guess it's just about having that look and that view that feels soothing and warm.
The previous post "Sonora" about being elegance, I think that if you put effort trying to be one, somehow, you see things in which la vie est en rose.
BARON:
I will tell you what happened. You forgot to turn on the oven.
SABRINA:
Oh!
BARON:
I have been watching you for a long time, Mademoiselle.
Your mind has not been on the cooking. It has been
elsewhere. You're in love. And I will venture to go a step further. You are unhappily in love.
SABRINA:
Does it show?
BARON:
Very clearly. A woman happily in love, she burns the soufflé. A woman unhappily in love, she forgets to turn on the oven. Am I correct?
SABRINA:
Yes. But I'm trying to get over it.
BARON:
Why try to get over it? You speak of love like it was
a bad cough.
SABRINA:
He doesn't even know I exist. I might as well be
reaching for the moon.
BARON:
That's quite a moon. Oh, you young people. You are
so old-fashioned! Have you not heard? We are building
rockets to reach the moon!
speechless and redundant "What I'd do, I figured, I'd go down to the Holland Tunnel and bum a ride, and then I'd bum another one, and another one, and another one, and in a few days I'd be somewhere out West where it was very pretty and sunny and where nobody'd know me and I'd get a job.
I figured I could get a job at a filling station somewhere, putting gas and oil in people's cars. I didn't care what kind of job it was, though. Just so people didn't know me and I didn't know anybody. I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They'd get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I'd be through with having conversations for the rest of my life.
Everybody'd think I was just a poor deaf-mute bastard and they'd leave me alone. - Catcher In The Rye - JD Salinger
I lost my voice. It's been Week 2 since.
The good thing about losing the voice is that you didn't have to speak much. When people heard the hoarse voice, they'll sympathise and there'll be a "sound barrier" between you and the world. Hand gestures will be enough, people won't ask much.
elegance
In my deafening silence, I'm reminded of the "Enjoy the silence" theme that has found its way in my blog on previous entries.
Even though I'm down with high fever, thick phlegms, and un-easiness, I kind of enjoy being silent and alone in my thoughts.
It felt elegant in a certain way.
I'm reminded of someone I had a crush on when I was at uni. She was Chinese-Iban, a smart dean-list attractive girl.
At first, like all guys who are horny, and behave like cows to grass when seeing an attractive girl, I liked her because she was attractive. She was that small built girl with Utada Hikaru look. Yet somehow, even though I was fancy of her and talked about her with my friends, I never really talked to her. I didn't made the effort because somehow I was in that state of mind that is best described as freaky. I talked a lot noisily with people , but would spend my time alone. I even wrote "Antisocial" with liquid paper on my school bag. That was how freaky I was.
Then throughout the years, when I think about girls like her, I suddenly realised. What strikes me was the elegance.
She was quiet. The subtle looks. That confidence of not giving a damn about other boys. Since then, I happen to come across with few girls who are like that.
The kind of girl who knew she's attractive, but they did not bitch around. They don't think much about trying to win people's attention, or what Malaysian Malays call as "gedik". "Gedik" is being too childy-girlish.
They are not. It was about being elegant.
Most Malay guys I knew, couldn't comprehend this concept because of stereotypes, or social class maybe.
I think it because being elegant requires a certain "not give a damn" kinda attitude, hence the need not to look up so much on others.
If you're being brought up in higher social class, then I guess it will be natural not to look up on other people so much.
A pinch of narcissm would help as much as a pinch of salt in cooking dishes, maybe.
Its about thinking much about yourself and your style. You want to get beautiful, not because of craving so much of others' attention, but due to the sole fact that it was lovely to be beautiful.
It was lovely to get beautiful, to become part of the word "beautiful" itself.
Just like the scene in "Breakfast in Tiffany" where Audrey Hepburn wore that beautiful black dress with pearls for breakfast.
With hair being curled. it felt lonely, but it was subtle.
conceited
But Hell, honestly, if that uni-crush girl wasn't attractive, I wouldn't give this psycho-analysis shit about her so much. I would have never come up with the idea of "elegance". Let's be freaking honest about that.
"After we started going around together, I asked her how come she could date a showoff bastard like Al Pike. Jane said he wasn't a show-off. She said he had an inferiority complex. She acted like she felt sorry for him or something, and she wasn't just putting it on. She meant it. It's a funny thing about girls. Every time you mention some guy that's strictly a bastard--very mean, or very conceited and all-- and when you mention it to the girl, she'll tell you he has an inferiority complex. Maybe he has, but that still doesn't keep him from being a bastard, in my opinion.
Girls. You never know what they're going to think.
I once got this girl Roberta Walsh's roommate a date with a friend of mine. His name was Bob Robinson and he really had an inferiority complex. You could tell he was very ashamed of his parents and all, because they said "he don't" and "she don't" and stuff like that and they weren't very wealthy. But he wasn't a bastard or anything. He was a very nice guy. But this Roberta Walsh's roommate didn't like him at all. She told Roberta he was too conceited--and the reason she thought he was conceited was because he happened to mention to her that he was captain of the debating team. A little thing like that, and she thought he was conceited!
The trouble with girls is, if they like a boy, no matter how big a bastard he is, they'll say he has an inferiority complex, and if they don't like him, no matter how nice a guy he is, or how big an inferiority complex he has, they'll say he's conceited. Even smart girls do it." - Catcher In The Rye - JD Salinger
In my solemn way, I kinda did it. Simply because I lost my voice. When you lose your voice, not just you couldn't say much, but you also hate to say much. Not only because it felt sick, it's also that you kinda lose the mood to speak.
And what happen next, was great. It was intuitive.
I couldn't care much about other things.
For example, Facebook.
I didn't post any words, I just posted photos, one post about toy model of tanks which I liked immensely due to its attention to details, being intricate. Then a post of drawings of Claude Monet. Not only because I liked it, but because it was beautiful, and I want my FB page to be beautiful.
I didn't feel like talking with people online, so I did not.
I posted my cat's photos before. She was Gomi. She is deafmute.
The way I communicate with my wife, somehow is the same as how Gomi communicated with her.
It was thru subtle looks and expression.
Sometimes it was hand gestures. Sometimes I just hold her hand tightly. I gave her the "Gomi look". "I want food" have its own pitiful face expression. "I'm tired". "It's ok". "What time is it?" also have their own expression. "I don't want" constitutes of walking away from the dreaded thing.
But all these expression and subtle looks have one theme in common. That is "I need you."
Being a wife, she must have loved it.
But I know sometimes she's mad because she express it by being verbal and by hostile action. I learned that the elegant way to deal with it, is to take time, relax and when the time comes, just a gentle "hold her hand" thing would do. The gomi look that comes with a sense of guilt would be spelled as F.O.R.G.I.V.E.N.E.S.S.
elegance is a mindset
"Elegance is a timeless room that speaks softly of charm and refinement. The graceful furnishings and paintings reflect a soft French influence blending lavenders..." - Internet link that is dangerous to open
This blog entry is now becoming long-winded. No way it could become elegant.
I would like to emphasize that this elegance quality, should not be mistaken for a feminine quality. It's a quality that speaks softly of charm and refinement.
I think it is good for men to acquire their own sense of elegance. They should. Wine should taste better with age.
When I lost my voice, and the mood to talk, I acquired the sense of not reacting to news in the Net or Social Media.
In Malaysia, recent issues are about a lorry driver being hit by people because his driving because of some panic move, neverending Syiah Wahabi dispute and so on.
I found my friends posting their opinion, yet somehow, I felt, it's best not to react.
And I did found my peace of mind of doing so. First, I felt insulated from the chicken noises. Then, I felt I didn't attribute to the ever-increasing escalating feeling of a news.
"Almost every reality you “know” at any given second is a mere ghost held in memory." - quote from the book "You Are STILL Being Lied To: The NEW Disinformation Guide to Media ..." by Russ Kick
the world hurts unnecessarily - media madness
I reminded by the incident EgyptAir Flight 990, and I think it's a good example for Muslims actually.
The NTSB's final report on Flight 990 was expected for the fall of this year, and it was widely presumed in aviation circles that the report would find no mechanical failure or external cause for the crash. It also seemed likely that the report would at least implicitly blame Batouti for the disaster—a conclusion that would, of course, be unacceptable within Egypt. Nonetheless, by last May, when I met him in Cairo, Shaker Kelada was looking pleased, and I later found out why. His engineers had gotten busy again, and had come up with new concerns—certain combinations of tail-control failures that might require further testing. Now Boeing had come to town for a quiet talk with its customers, and had agreed to do the tests. Boeing was going to inform the NTSB of the new work, and the end would again be delayed.
Sitting in his office, Kelada could not help gloating. He said, "Jim Hall told me, 'I've learned a very good lesson. When you deal with a foreign carrier in an investigation, before you go anywhere with it, you have to study the history and culture of the country.' These were his own words to me! He said, 'I knew nothing about Egypt or its culture before we got into EgyptAir 990.'"
I said, "What would he have learned?"
"Not to underestimate people. To think that he's way up there, and everybody's way down here."
Fair enough. But in the end there was the question of the objective truth—and there was the inclination not to seek real answers for even such a simple event as a single accident nearly two years before.
I knew that at the start of the investigation the Egyptian delegation had included a man named Mamdouh Heshmat, a high official in civil aviation. When the cockpit voice recording first arrived at L'Enfant Plaza, Heshmat was there, and he heard it through with a headset on. According to several investigators who listened alongside him, he came out of the room looking badly shaken, and made it clear he knew that Batouti had done something wrong. He may have called Cairo with that news. The next day he flew home, never to reappear in Washington. When NTSB investigators went to Cairo, they could not find him, though it was said that he was still working for the government. I knew I wouldn't find him either, but I wanted to see how Kelada would react to the mention of him. Kelada and I had come to the end. I said I had heard about a man who had been one of the first to listen to the tape—who could it have been? Kelada looked straight at me and said, "I don't recall his name." There was no reason to continue, from his perspective or mine."
"I’m struck by how, except when you’re young, you really need to prioritize in life, figuring out in
what order you should divide up your time and energy. If you don’t get that sort of system set by a
certain age, you’ll lack focus and your life will be out of balance. I placed the highest priority on the
sort of life that lets me focus on writing, not associating with all the people around me. I felt that the
indispensable relationship I should build in my life was not with a specific person, but with an
unspecified number of readers. As long as I got my day-to-day life set so that each work was an
improvement over the last, then many of my readers would welcome whatever life I chose for myself.
Shouldn’t this be my duty as a novelist, and my top priority? My opinion hasn’t changed over the
years. I can’t see my readers’ faces, so in a sense it’s a conceptual type of human relationship, but I’ve
consistently considered this invisible, conceptual relationship to be the most important thing in my
life. In other words, you can’t please everybody. Even when I ran my bar I followed the same policy. A lot of customers came to the bar. If one out
of ten enjoyed the place and said he’d come again, that was enough. If one out of ten was a repeat
customer, then the business would survive. To put it the other way, it didn’t matter if nine out of ten
didn’t like my bar. This realization lifted a weight off my shoulders. Still, I had to make sure that the
one person who did like the place really liked it. In order to make sure he did, I had to make my
philosophy and stance clear-cut, and patiently maintain that stance no matter what. This is what I
learned through running a business."
Haruki Murakami - What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
Today is wife's off day. (She's working at Texas Chicken). Since I'm not working then, we had to make the best of our day by not looking at each other dumb-ly while watching Didi and Friends at 8am.
And so both of us went out. The idea is simple. We are to be at any place that is air-conditioned.
Morning, we had our date at McDonalds. Never thought cakoi drizzled in chocolate and drowned in hot soya drink is surprisingly, not good, but magnificently great.
She had iced milo and RM1 ice-cream. She played Hay Day on her phone while I read the news.
Then we both laid our asses at the cybercafe. The plan is to sit here until 3.00pm which we will have our lunch, prayed and went back home so that she can watch on TV how Razia Sultan crying at her dad the Sultan being dead and her step-brother doing some coup de etat.
Wife have a great talent, she is very good at Street Fighter / Tekken that somehow, the kids at the cybercafe stood up behind us watching her defeating Ogre and winning the game.
I went out few times to buy some coconut water and listening to Surf Rock.
My unfulfilled wish is to buy/own a Bernard Baruch book entitled My Own Story. So far I haven't got hold of that.
Just a story.
Had a conversation at Facebook Messenger with one of my cousin. When I asked her where she's working now, she seemed disturbed to answer.
I told her, that a good relative or friends, should not even bother about your salary or your job. Just good to know that you're good is all we want to know. The rest of other info are just for the sake of warm conversation, so that we can feel warm with you.
That's the great insight of Bernard Baruch in his quote "Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."
"Often quoted response to Igor Cassini, a popular society columnist for the New York Journal American, when asked how he handled the seating arrangements for all those who attended his dinner parties, as quoted in Shake Well Before Using: A New Collection of Impressions and Anecdotes Mostly Humorous (1948) by Bennett Cerf, p. 249; the full response was "I never bother about that. Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter."
This is the Shout Magazine. It is actually in BM. But the English version is here. That cousin of mine, the one behind the Bernard Baruch story, was involved in the translation effort of the magazine. http://cfm.org.my/shout-newsletter-download
Firstly, I want to apologize for those who read this blog.
I sincerely do.
I realised that the blog is too clusterf***. Too many links, too many digression here and there without proper arrangement to make it readable.
The English grammar sucks. And the idea sometimes is blurry for some, they didn't get it.
And I think that this blog is bloody boring.
http://www.copyblogger.com/dont-be-boring/ Your readers are self-absorbed little punks. They don’t mean to be, but they are. They’re busy and stressed and searching the web for ways to just escape. They don’t want to learn anything when they’re in escape mode. They just want to feel something other than boredom or fear or inadequacy. So all that content you created to teach them something? Yeah, they look at it for a few seconds, discover it requires actual thought (the horror!), and start hunting for the Back button. That affiliate review for the supercool product you really do believe in and would happily sell without a commission? Eww. You’re just another one of those evil con artists trying to scam them out of their money. I know, it’s not fair. You deserve better. But it’s the truth. The sooner you accept it, the sooner you can get past it. Because
hiding underneath all that self-absorbed punkishness is a person who
desperately needs you and will love you until the day they die — if you
can actually help them. And you can help them. You just have to know how to grab their attention first. So let’s talk about that.
But in the same time, I felt fortunate and cool about it.
Number 1 : People are tiring
Sometime ago, I had a boss which I respected so much, because he was a quiet guy.
His level of quiet-ness, is that if you are to drop by at his desk and ask him question, he will just continue looking at the computer screen and ignore you.
I was amazed when I first saw this, normal people will just diss it, but then I saw the practicality of it.
After years of working with this great man, I realised, he was just focusing on his job and putting priority to complete his task first.
There's a book entitled 101 Ways To Clean Up Your Act by Dianna Booher. Application of my boss philosophy is found in Way 83 in the book, which I will type for you.
Way 83 : Ignore responses that can be directed elsewhere
Flattery will get you every time. "You're always so helpful, would you mind checking something for me? I know you attended the XYZ meeting last year and heard Ms Smith's briefing on the new inventory system. Would you review your notes to see if..." While it's nice to be so 'helpful' and efficient, the flattery always costs you time and effort. Now that's not to say that you want to be unnecessarily rude, uncooperative or unhelpful. It is to say you can present alternatives to people. Do they want the information from you - if you can only get it 'in a few weeks'? Or would you prefer to phone Ted, 'who has the same information at the fingertips'? When your helpfulness is presented in that framework, the other person will usually opt for the quicker alternative. On other occasions, you simply don't have to respond at all. If the request requires time-consuming paperwork, simply stall until the requester seeks the information elsewhere. You frequently make those decision about your own needs. For example, you have a question about a contribution to your individual retirement account. You phone your stockbroker's office, but she's not in. You leave a message. She doesn't return the call that day. The next morning, in a hurry for the answer, you decide to phone your accountant to ask the same question. Instant answer. You're happy - and think nothing less of the 'unavailable' stockbroker. Likewise, others may ask you to provide information because you're convenient. And if you weren't so cooperative or convenient, they'd go elsewhere for the same information. Speedy help for them, less paperwork for you.
I'm getting older, time is shorter, so I made a point in my life then, that I will actively choose who I want to be with, not because I have to.
I made it harder for people to comment the blog, because to me, comment is cheap, even though I comment on other people's blog, and that is because I'm a hypocrite.
I made sure the people in my Facebook page is less than 100. I do not include lots of people, and a Facebook friend request is not necessarily approved.
The idea is when it comes to people, choose actively.
Jim Rohn did saythis.
You want to be happy, you need to be a good person. Choosing the right people you spend the most time with, is an efficient way achieving this.
You might not like this idea, but for me it's practical. I don't feel cruel somehow, because getting hurt due to people is more hateful.
Number 2 : Why so insecure?
A few days ago, I bought few books, one of it was a green RM10 book entitled "Xanthes : Speech".
Anyhow, this is the paragraph that got my mind running.
My idea is, since talkative people who wish to be loved are hated. then why be so goddam insecure about wanting to be loved in the first place?
I remembered about myself getting married, it was a successful effort, and I attribute it to two things, Number 1 is my 'not-giving-a-damn' attitude about rejection, and Number 2, knowing when to shut up.
Persuading the women was less hard than persuading the father of the bride. And I remember shutting up most of the time when I didn't know what to say.
However, I didn't mean that this to be an excuse for you to be sloppy.
If you're sloppy and have this attitude, you are damned.
I paid heavy price for my sloppiness, so beware. Be the best you can be.
Number 3 : This blog is free.
In the beginning, you read this.
They’re busy and stressed and searching the web for ways to just
escape. They don’t want to learn anything when they’re in escape mode.
They just want to feel something other than boredom or fear or
inadequacy.
But then for all the time and effort spent, what is the return for writing the blog?
Everybody have their own reason and logic for spending time and effort writing. Passion, desire, wanting to have lots of friends, etc.
For me, it is just a collection of ideas I had in my mind which I want to keep.
And writing in English is a good practice.
The worst shit that happen is that when people insist you write or draw according to their whims.
As if you owe them their attention. And their attention is required for you to pay your bills.
The surfin bird mentality is just doing something you like with no apparent reason and not giving a shit about others.
Especially when working life is stressful, the place is stressful, every goddam thing that exist around your sight is stressful, and you just wanting to be self-absorbing little punks like those hopeless American soldiers in Vietnam. wishing that you can get away once in a while.
