Despondent At The End Or The Beginning Of Hope By Akhramshah bin Sanusi Junid

 OSTB : The clearest thinking is always in the early hours of the morning, after a good night's sleep. So is the clearest understanding from reading something early in the morning. Also the best ideas pop up early in the morning.

It looks like my friend Akhramshah Sanusi has been putting some potent thoughts down in the wee hours of the dawn today.  Here is Akhram. 

I have some comments at the end. 

By Akhramshah Sanusi :

It is easy to be disgusted to see what is happening to our country. The whole world is suffering, but while others move forward, despite the misery, even sprinting with hope in the all too short periods when the pandemic eases about them, we remain confused and directionless.

It is also easy to partake in the common hobby of our people of pointing fingers at those we blame for our suffering. The politicians, both in power or deprived of it (OSTB: Ha ha - either you were voted in or you were voted out. Its a democracy), being those often pilloried. Also those in power by station, by job, by role and now ultimately also by birth.

It is not so easy it seems to channel the anger now brewing among us into something more. Resignation and apathy seem easier paths for many, helpless and increasingly penniless. We crave the stability we have now lost, forgetting how ungrateful we were when we once had it. (OSTB : It was a false summer. It was feel good all the way. It was the bliss of an opium den. We became oblivious.) 

We have little choice really, easy or not. Now our future seems to rest in the hands of 9 gentlemen so detached from our daily lives that it should be easier to fear or d-sp-se them, but we are so driven by desperation that so many hope, whilst also confused as to what really we should hope for.

Whatever happens at the Is--na where too few of our citizens will ever tread in the coming day or so, we cannot allow ourselves to continue to believe that our fate is in the hands of others. We have now been reduced to laying hope for the future on 9 mo---chs.. the world is laughing at us with pity..

Are we so bereft of ideas, an entire people, that all we can do is blame, argue and ponder at what others should do for us? There has to be more to being what we are than the food that supposedly unites us, now so distant as we remain caged in our homes, away for the haunts of our friendships.

This is meant to be cathartic only so far and now is the time that this prose should turn to uplift.. but we are scarred, restless, helpless, and within an inch of hopelessness. It is perhaps best to end by declaring that what we have now is just not good enough, and craving our past glories.. unproductive..

It is best to end by sharing one thing that we all realise but struggle to articulate, that we cannot remain this way. Our nation will fail, as our people perish and our children left destitute. 

But change cannot be so limited as to be satisfied with what nine of the most privileged decide for us in days come.

It is best that whatever happens on the day that is to come be the end of our beginning rather than be the beginning of our end..

Without Wax,

AMUS Ibnu TSSJ

The wee hours before Subuh, 15 June 2021

My comments :

I read this and it actually sounds like "The beginning of despondence and the end of hope".  

I look at it like this : when a specific course of action fails then see if there is a general course of action that we can take.

Meaning, if you tried something unique, something boutique, something very different that maybe has never been done before - and then you failed. To overcome it look at how other people (plural) do it.  And see if they fail or succeed. 

If other people can do things using standard, reliable, general, acceptable and workable methods then just follow them. 

Why insist on doing things "according to our way" when it has failed for 30 years, 40 years, 50 years and is failing non stop. I mean how many more decades is it going to take to realise that a square wheel does not get you anywhere as well as a round wheel. 

What Einstein said about 'insanity' comes to mind again.

But herein lies great hope. Which is why I keep repeating again and again that the solutions to all the problematic people in this country are too simple. The solutions are really too simple.  

But first - there is a difference between taking a wrong turn and getting off the beaten path. 

You can take a wrong turn even if you are travelling on a six lane highway. Thats not too bad. You still travel in super comfort, safety and good speed. If you took a wrong turn on the six lane highway, just turn around and get back on track. Use Google Maps or Waze or the GPS.

But when you get off the beaten track, you consciously left that six lane highway which everyone else was travelling upon. Instead you turned into an unknown, unpaved muddy road, with no street lamps, no street signs, nothing to guide you safely and successfully to your intended destination. 

And you expect to arrive safely and successfully at your destination ahead of everyone else. What makes you so unthinking? 'Kita ikut acuan kita sendiri'.

Ok lets fast forward. The solution is obvious. It is there. The rest of the world is already benefitting from it. There is a commonality among the successful. The successful people seem to follow a common set of rules. The playing fields of the successful do seem to have a common level.  Just turnaround, backtrack and get back on that six lane highway.

There is another huge problem with travelling down a path that is unknown. An untrodden path. You never know what dangers and disasters await you ALONG THE WAY. And also you do not know what finally awaits you AT THE END of the muddy road. Why? Because it does not appear on Google, Waze or GPS. That is why.   It is an uncharted path. 

But this is not the real problem. Which is why I keep saying the solutions to Malaysia's problems are too easy. They are just too easy.

The real problem is the stubborness and the insistence to keep travelling down the muddy road.  To keep doing things 'ikut acuan kita sendiri' which has no precedence anywhere else.  And which has brought failure - almost complete systemic failure of the entire enterprise. 

And yet what is being promised ? Doing the same thing again. Or over and over again. Maybe, just maybe, lets try just this one more time - maybe the results will be different. Insya Allah. 

It will not work. 

Artikel ini adalah pandangan penulis dan tidak semestinya mewakili MMKtT.