Ervan’s Weltanschauung

I finally had the chance to watch this movie…

Two things that strike me on the movie..

1. Chris Gardner never blamed anyone else for his situation. Most of the Americans in the 80s would put the blame on Reagan.
2. Chris Gardner believed that only he can help himself and not to expect help from others.

Now, if only we learn….

4 characters, 4 totally unexpected characters turn out to be Cylons.

And one came back from the dead, to be the messiah that will lead the humans to the promised land. Or rather in this case, the promised planet.

With such a season cliffhanger, I wish I could be Hiro Nakamura so that I could teleport to the future to watch season 4 of Battlestar Galactica….

Battlestar Galactica, never fail to surprise you when you least expect it.

at the end of the tunnel, and I am praying,

hoping,

wanting,

that this is the right one…..

for I’ve been disappointed, given false hopes, misled, many times…

This year is Malaysia’s 50th year of independence. Malaysia has changed a lot since then. Heck, even my secondary school will be 50 next year. My neighbourhood was a former rubber estate. Now, one can barely see any rubber trees. A lot has changed in the last 50 years.

The one thing that I do wish for Malaysia is for it to be led by capable leaders. With a steady stream of capable leaders will only Malaysia achieve success. But, this will be a tough call, because our current leaders have always felt threaten by their subordinates that prevented a good succession planning. Even those who can lead were shunned because of many reasons. Too young to lead, lack of financial backing that lead to lack of followers. Sometimes, even if one has a lot of followers, that does not mean that he, or she is a good leader. Being a leader is not only about making popular decisions, but making the right decisions, even if it is not popular.

Michael Jordan once said that give him 4 ordinary basketball players who are passionate about the game any day to 4 superstars. Indeed, the Chicago Bulls team of the 90s have only two superstars in MJ and Scottie, but they got good ball players who have the drive and passion that helped them to win Championships.

For me, Malaysia will need leaders who have the passion and drive, and most importantly integrity. One who stood fast to his beliefs. One who is passionate for Malaysians. And one who has the drive to improve the livelihood of Malaysians. All Malaysians, even the little people on the streets.

But, these breed of leaders will not be produced, unless Malaysians themselves undergo a mental revolution. Malaysians are patriotic, and would do anything for the country. But that is only part of the equation. We Malaysians have a duty to exercise our rights as a Malaysian. Where we let our votes talk, by voting for the person instead of the party. Most importantly, by letting our head, and not our emotions rule us.

I know it seems far fetched, but even then, do you really think Rome was built in a day?

I was blog surfing earlier and I found a blog that has an entry on W.S. Rendra. Oom Rendra is a family friend, and would stay over with us when he is in KL. I have seen his theatre shows, and "deklamasi sajaks" organised by Dewan Bahasa when I was small. The last time I met him was ages ago back in 1993 or 1994, just before I left for Cardiff. I wonder how is he doing now?

Renungan Indah -

Sering kali aku berkata, ketika orang memuji milikku,

bahwa sesungguhnya ini hanya titipan,

bahwa mobilku hanya titipan Nya,

bahwa rumahku hanya titipan Nya,

bahwa hartaku hanya titipan Nya,

bahwa putraku hanya titipan Nya,

tetapi, mengapa aku tak pernah bertanya, mengapa Dia menitipkan padaku?

Untuk apa Dia menitipkan ini pada ku?

Dan kalau bukan milikku, apa yang harus kulakukan untuk milik Nya ini?

Adakah aku memiliki hak atas sesuatu yang bukan milikku?

Mengapa hatiku justru terasa berat, ketika titipan itu diminta kembali oleh-Nya ?

Ketika diminta kembali, kusebut itu sebagai musibah

kusebut itu sebagai ujian, kusebut itu sebagai petaka,

kusebut dengan panggilan apa saja untuk melukiskan bahwa itu adalah derita.

Ketika aku berdoa, kuminta titipan yang cocok dengan hawa nafsuku,

aku ingin lebih banyak harta,

ingin lebih banyak mobil,

lebih banyak rumah,

lebih banyak popularitas,

dan kutolak sakit, kutolak kemiskinan,

Seolah semua "derita" adalah hukuman bagiku.

Seolah keadilan dan kasih Nya harus berjalan seperti matematika :

aku rajin beribadah, maka selayaknyalah derita menjauh dariku, dan

Nikmat dunia kerap menghampiriku.

Kuperlakukan Dia seolah mitra dagang, dan bukan Kekasih.

Kuminta Dia membalas "perlakuan baikku", dan menolak keputusanNya yang tak sesuai keinginanku,

Gusti, padahal tiap hari kuucapkan, hidup dan matiku hanyalah untuk beribadah…

"ketika langit dan bumi bersatu, bencana dan keberuntungan sama saja"

(WS Rendra).

Ninie, my colleague forwarded me an email on Warren Buffet.

There was a one hour
interview on CNBC with Warren Buffet, the second richest man who has donated $31
billion to charity. Here are some very interesting aspects of his
life:

 

1. He bought his first share at age
     11 and he now regrets that he started too late!
    
2. He bought a small farm at age 14
     with savings from delivering newspapers.
    
3. He still lives in the same small 3
     bedroom house in mid-town Omaha, that he bought after he got married
     50 years ago. He says that he has everything he needs in that house. His
     house does not have a wall or a fence.
    
4. He drives his own car everywhere
     and does not have a driver or security people around him.
    
5. He never travels by private jet,
     although he owns the world’s largest private jet company.
    
6. His company, Berkshire Hathaway,
     owns 63 companies. He writes only one letter each year to the CEOs of
     these companies, giving them goals for the year.  He never holds meetings
     or calls them on a regular basis.
    
7. He has given his CEO’s only two
     rules. Rule number 1: do not lose any of your shareholder’s money. Rule number
     2: Do not forget rule number 1.
    
8. He does not socialize with the
     high society crowd. His past time after he gets home is to make
     himself some pop corn and watch television.
    
9. Bill Gates, the world’s richest
     man met him for the first time only 5 years ago.  Bill Gates did not
     think he had anything in common with Warren Buffet. So he had scheduled
     his meeting only for half hour. But when Gates met him, the meeting
     lasted for ten hours and Bill Gates became a devotee of Warren
     Buffet.
    
10. Warren Buffet does not carry a
      cell phone, nor has a computer on his desk.
     
11. His advice to young people: Stay
      away from credit cards and invest in yourself.

Warren Buffet quotes (from Wikipedia):

"I personally think that society is responsible for a very
significant percentage of what I’ve earned. If you stick me down in the
middle of Bangladesh or Peru or someplace, you find out how much this
talent is going to produce in the wrong kind of soil… I work in a
market system that happens to reward what I do very well -
disproportionately well. Mike Tyson,
too. If you can knock a guy out in 10 seconds and earn $10 million for
it, this world will pay a lot for that. If you can bat .360, this world
will pay a lot for that. If you’re a marvelous teacher, this world
won’t pay a lot for it. If you are a terrific nurse, this world will
not pay a lot for it. Now, am I going to try to come up with some
comparable worth system that somehow (re)distributes that? No, I don’t
think you can do that. But I do think that when you’re treated
enormously well by this market system, where in effect the market
system showers the ability to buy goods and services on you because of
some peculiar talent - maybe your adenoids are a certain way, so you
can sing and everybody will pay you enormous sums to be on television
or whatever -I think society has a big claim on that." (Lowe 1997:164-165)

"I don’t have a problem with guilt about money. The way I see it
is that my money represents an enormous number of claim checks on
society. It’s like I have these little pieces of paper that I can turn
into consumption. If I wanted to, I could hire 10,000 people to do
nothing but paint my picture every day for the rest of my life. And the
GNP would go up. But the utility of the product would be zilch, and I
would be keeping those 10,000 people from doing AIDS research, or
teaching, or nursing. I don’t do that though. I don’t use very many of
those claim checks. There’s nothing material I want very much. And I’m
going to give virtually all of those claim checks to charity when my
wife and I die." (Lowe 1997:165-166)

31 billion US Dollars were given to charity, a bulk went to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  Yes, like Ninie said, we can learn a thing or two from this man.

It’s been a while since I blogged on Battlestar Galactica. We see less of the Cylons, which is a good thing. In the absence of one common enemy, new enemies and old enemies were made between the survivors of the Twelve Colonies.

It only take one simple thing, just one person, who wants to survive, to spread the seed of discontent within the survivors. He wrote a book, used old age discontent of the poorer colonies to make them feel that the rich colonies are the enemies. How one person would do anything, even to disunite the human race, just for his own survival..

The scriptwriters of Battlestar Galactica have proved another point for me. Just one person can make the human race self destruct. Too bad not many people watch it, as they can learn a thing or two….

English is widely spoken in many parts of the world. Essentially it is English, but there are many variations of English. We got the Queen’s English, South African English, North American English, Indian English, and on our shores, Manglish and Singlish.

I  love the Queen’s English, and the Scottish accent. Welsh is a bit tough on me as they speak with a rolling tongue. Americans, I think we have heard enough of their accent on TV, especially the South Texas slang in Bush….

Anyway, I had the opportunity to travel and experience speaking English in many parts of the world. It is kinda hard to find a Japanese or Korean to speak English. And even if they do, you have to struggle to understand them. Heck, it is even faster to speak to them in their own tongue, or in one case, since I knew his wife is an Indonesian, I to talk to him in Indonesian.

Even Indonesia, and Malaysia, which shares the same language root, differs. One innocent word in the Indonesian language is rather offensive for Malaysians. Malaysians used to abbreviate long words. After all, the word pawagam came from Tan Sri P. Ramlee, who shorten the words Panggung Wayang Bergambar to pawagam. Reading the Indonesian "koran", I find interesting words like, Wapres, Sumbar, Jabar, and Jatim. Only after asking around I found out the meaning for those words….And by now, some would wonder what is this "koran". Please remember, "koran" is not Quran. It is what we know as newspaper in English….

And going around the world, you’ll find that some words can be very similar to other languages. I once learned how to count in Italian, and realised, due is very similar to dua in Malaysian. Or when I was in Japan,  I overheard someone exclaiming, aramak!
Hmm, dosa means sin in Malaysian, but in India, dosa is the tasty food that we have for breakfast. India. In my opinion, the northern Indians speak the best English in the world. They have a good command in their grammar.

However I changed my mind because of one incident. I asked one for the directions to a hotel in Mumbai. He told me that he is going there and told me that I just have to follow his backside. Imagine how hard I tried to maintain my composure, and only laughed when I was inside my car, away from his sight.

I will always remember this incident that happened many years ago when I was in BBBS..

This
incident happened when I was in the afternoon session in Form 1.  The
prefect was Donald (again name changed to protect his identity), and he
was the Duty Prefect for the day. Duty Prefect means, he’s the one in charge of the assembly.

In doing an important task or given a responsibility. I always tell myself to have faith in myself, and of course God. I have faith because I know I have the necessary information, training and experience to complete the task. This reaffirmation gave me the confidence to complete the task in hand. But should I failed the task, I normally console myself that it was fated, and to learn from the mistakes I made.

If the task was not completed on time, I should learn to plan my time better.
If I did not have the necessary training and information on the task, I should learn to read on the the necessary documentation and do the necessary training on the tasks in order to educate myself.
I learn to critically evaluate myself.

It would be a problem if I kept on repeating failing the tasks because of the same mistakes I made earlier. It is obvious that I did not learn from it.  But it would be a bigger problem if I resign to the fact that I am fated to fail on every task.

For, even if you are fated to fail, you can make the effort to change your fate. God only help those who help themselves.

Yes, even failures can succeed. Ask Thomas Edison,  the light bulb inventor, who also found 999 ways not to make a light bulb. Or Steve Jobs who have achieved success, then led one failed venture to another, until he found Pixar Studios (by pure sheer luck, I should add), and of course, his second coming in Apple.

Faith alone is not enough as one needs the effort in order to change his or her fate.