"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.
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 read articles, books, things. It felt nice.
Then this link came, and the nice feeling intensifies. I had a lot to read now.
http://cnqzu.com/library/_Table%20of%20Contents.htm
gomi look
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 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.
Nevertheless, you can read about elegance here.
http://tonyaleigh.com/frenchie-friday-50-ways-to-be-elegant/
http://www.wikihow.com/Be-Elegant
http://www.wikihow.com/Become-an-Elegant-Woman
http://www.elegantwoman.org/elegant-sophisticated.html
http://www.elegantwoman.org/how-to-be-elegant.html
http://www.beautyandtips.com/beauty-2/10-tips-on-how-to-feel-like-an-elegant-and-classy-lady/
http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Classy-Guy
https://parisiangentleman.co.uk/academy/mens-elegance-10-tips-for-beginners/
http://lifestyle.howstuffworks.com/family/parenting/for-moms-and-dads/how-to-be-classy-gentleman.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibui
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibui
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
I reminded by the incident EgyptAir Flight 990, and I think it's a good example for Muslims actually.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=82910
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/mar/16/duncancampbell
The NTSB found that the plane crash due to a deliberate input by the First Officer.
The issue was Egypt people won't accept the conclusions, went fight on and debated with it
They came up with other conclusion such as mechanical failure, rocket strikes, and even came out with conspiracy theories.
NTSB made a flying simulation and concluded that the flying pattern of the plane could not be emulated, other than by input from the cockpit.
The fact that the First Officer said "Tawakallahu alal Allah" many times had caused Egypt news and media to get fueled up.
And the Egypt government went out to pressuring NTSB and other political manuvers to somehow implicate that the First Officer did not crash the plane.
You can read the Cockpit Voice Recorder transcript here.
http://www.tailstrike.com/311099.pdf
I'm not here to argue how the plane crashed.
The story is about the craziness that happens after the plane crashed.
You can read here.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/11/the-crash-of-egyptair-990/302332/
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."
-taken from : https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/11/the-crash-of-egyptair-990/302332/
Whatever it is, no matter how Egypt tried to argue their case, whatever motive it is,
Anyhow my idea of this story is, sometimes, media sometimes is there for something other than the truth.
It is best not to get riled up by news.
Be objective. To be shibui to yourself is by insulating yourself to the madness of the world.
Those noisy words in the Social Media, did you got a trophy if your arguments went true? Nope.
embody
I felt like preaching. So I'll stop here.
Enjoy the moments of life in your own classy way.
And by the way, I would like to wish Happy Chinese New Year to all.
Wish you warm feelings.
Photo Source :
http://www.star2.com/style/2017/01/18/style-ideas-for-chinese-new-year/
http://www.boredpanda.com/sakura-cherry-blossom-japan-2014/
http://grapee.jp/en/60086
http://pcwallart.com/audrey-hepburn-dress-in-breakfast-at-tiffanys-wallpaper-2.html
http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/audrey-hepburn/images/22871649/title/rare-elegance-photo