The Holy Trinity of My Mental Health (revisited)

Mr Wong, Booboots and my beloved Bunyip have an immense therapeutic effect on me, thank heaven!

Today was one of those days when I went to bed as Vishnu (the Preserver) and woke up as Shiva (the Destroyer). What happened? NOTHING! But the silly season approaches and, as usual, it brings out the worst in me. If I had my finger on a Red Button I'd be sorely tempted to press it and let the whole shebang be blown to smithereens like some unnamed Mongolian woman (who, Imigresen insists, never visited Malaysia). On days like this I tend to view the entire human experiment as an abysmal failure - Homo sapiens, my foot! More like a nest of contentious lice with all their stupid conflicts over primitive belief systems.

This year (2007) it was compounded by the fact that yesterday was a public holiday (Hari Raya Haji) and the banks were closed - which meant some money deposited in my account on Thursday won't clear till Christmas Eve or maybe even after Boxing Day, leaving me with exactly RM111.70 in my wallet plus a residue of RM9.12 in my Maybank account. Of course, I wouldn't be quite so cheesed off if this pathetic country called Bolehland believed in paying freelancers on time.

Wrote a feature for a national daily back in August and I'm still waiting for the measly payment of - what, RM250? It's absolutely indefensible and outrageous - and Malaysians have the gall to publicly lament the dearth of full-time writers. Where are all the great novelists? Well, you'll find a pile of skeletal remains on Desolation Row with notably large skulls who all perished waiting for checks in the post.

What is it about Christmas - or Kerismas (as Dean Johns recently called it in a barbed piece he wrote for Malaysiakini) - that brings out the Beast, if not the Scrooge, in me? When I asked myself many, many years ago why people living in the tropics would send each other greeting cards with images of reindeer, wintry landscapes, pine forests, and white-bearded fat men in red suits, I realized that most folks are totally unoriginal - and, what's more alarming, they hardly ever think, except perhaps in pre-programmed loops with default settings. After 130 years of British rule, many Anglophile middle-class Malaysians have adopted "Xmas" as their own celebration, without researching the origins of what once was a pagan celebration of the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. December 21 or 22 marks the longest night of the year in the north and the mid-point of winter (in the southern hemisphere it would be the peak of summer). To cheer themselves up after weeks of dreary weather, folks celebrated the symbolic renewal of life after a period of hibernation with a big feast and lots of wine. Sometimes these parties would get a little orgiastic, especially with guys carrying mistletoe sprigs around just so they could kiss any girl they chanced upon. People sure knew how to have fun back then.

Then the reptilian Roman Church came along and co-opted the pagan festival, declaring it to be a celebration of the birth of Christ Jesus (whose actual birthday, according to some scholars, was October 4th). It was all a matter of political expediency and mass mind control. Centuries later, December 25th was hijacked by the retail business and turned into a paean to gross consumerism.

Flashing lights, sparkly baubles, and plastic pine trees became a billion-dollar industry - along with gift wrapping, fancy ribbons, frozen turkeys and imported Christmas pudding. Knowing all this, I found it hard to go along with the fake jolliness and greed-driven bonhomie of this aggressively marketed consumerist festival. Okay, so it was an excuse for far-flung families to get together - well and fine - but the pressure of exchanging gifts invariably gets to me. I enjoy giving presents spontaneously, when so inspired - not because it's expected. Five decades after I discovered the truth about Christmas, the tradition rages on undiminished - with the same old mindless carols and silly Santa songs blaring from every department store p.a. and vaguely Christian household.

Most folks say they love the cheery atmosphere around Christmas. Something must be wrong with me, I'm more likely to feel depressed. But then I've always been one of those misfits who absolutely detests campfire songs. Guess I'd never make the grade as a populist politico. I despise the Lowest Common Denominator far too much. People who subscribe to the Lowest Common Denominator know how to write hit tunes according to formulas decreed by market surveys; they know precisely what the public wants - and unabashedly dish it to them. Sensational tabloid headlines, mindless slogans like "Malaysia Boleh!"... wrestling videos... T-shirts emblazoned with popular football club insignia... great stuff, it sells like hot cakes!

Well, I allow myself to rant and rave and turn my nose up at the great unwashed one day out of every year - the other 364 days I'm a pretty upbeat and positive-thinking sort of fellow. In any case, those who spout idiocies like the Bottom Line and capitalize on the Lowest Common Denominator will probably end up in the Lowest Consciousness Domains come Non-Judgment Day.

Anyway, Happy Solstice, folks! I'm okay now. My mood lifted as soon as I saw Mr Wong smiling at me like the Dog of Dogs he truly is. Then I went down to the river with Ahau and Anoora (escorted by the canine corps) and after a minute under the best jacuzzi in the universe, my grumpy feelings were washed clean away. There was an Indian family picnicking at our usual spot and I felt my heart chakra expand as I silently blessed them all on this sacred day - and I realized I don't have what it takes to be a Great Dictator or Evil Emperor, since I can't stay angry with humans for more than a few minutes.

[First posted 21 December 2007, reposted 25 December 2016]

Where Malaysia is headed (Part 4)

"Progress might have been all right once,
but it has gone on too long." - Ogden Nash

A few days ago a Pajero pulled into Pertak Village where I live and a few swarthy men emerged with surveying equipment. Their energy was rather unpleasant and they even looked like bandits or brigands, so I decided to keep an eye on them. Two of them attempted to mount the steps leading to our house and were confronted by my canine corps. The second guy was carrying a long parang and appeared likely to use it if the dogs came too close. I went down and confronted the men, asking them point blank what they were up to.

The first guy, who could have been the gang leader, muttered something about a Tenaga Nasional project. They wanted to erect a series of power pylons all the way across the hills from Bentong. This was just a preliminary survey to see if the area was suitable, the man explained.

"Well, it isn't," I said quietly. "This area is keramat (sacred) to the Orang Asli. Power pylons discharge an electrical field that disturbs the flora and fauna. I wouldn't advise it."

As they finished whatever they were doing and drove away, I was already planning to write to the CEO of Tenaga Nasional Berhad, requesting that he intervene to prevent such ugly desecration of the last remaining patch of wilderness in Selangor.

Since I relocated here in 1992, I've been forced into environmental activism more than a few times. I'm getting tired of having to coordinate protests against destructive logging, oil palm schemes, unnecessary dam projects, and misguided attempts to pollute the ecosystem with man-made electrical fields.

This is yet another reason why I'm putting so much energy into ensuring that Pakatan Rakyat takes over the federal government as soon as possible from the hardened eco-criminals in Umno/BN. At least with new faces in charge - who haven't been able to profit from unholy alliances with loggers, developers, land speculators and avaricious entrepreneurs - the voices of conservation stand a better chance of getting heard... and, hopefully, heeded.


Mahathir's myopic vision of accelerating Malaysia's industrialization program was eagerly embraced by those keen on making a fast buck by plundering our natural heritage. Indeed, his shallow and vulgar Vision 2020 was entirely founded on a grotesque misreading of the purpose of existence.

The lowest common denominator has prevailed for way too long in the parasitic domains of commerce and industry. Hiding their true motives behind convenient catch phrases like "progress and development," businessmen have promoted the fallacy of trickle-down capitalism wherein the masses are supposed to enjoy the measly crumbs left over after the corporate fat-cats have feasted to their heart's content on the choicest bits.

Look around you the next time you venture into a supermarket and make a conscious inventory of all the products stacked on the shelves without which life would be utterly miserable, even impossible. I'm willing to bet, if you apply stringent standards, that no more than 15% of the manufactured goods can be classified as absolutely essential to human existence. The other 85% or more is basically destined to be converted into landfill as soon as they have been sold and consumed.

Endless consumption is the key to industrial growth. The more people consume, the richer the corporations become, and the more sophisticated the advertising becomes.

But the moment you pause to ponder the long-term consequences of unbridled consumption as the raison d'être of modern life, you will begin to see a direct link between degradation of the natural environment and the aggrandizement of the human ego.

It's always scary when you opt to swallow the Red Pill and begin to see through the gigantic scam of industrialization for what it truly is: a planet-sized concentration camp fenced in by invisible barbed wire where the guards are served a better grade of food and live in greater luxury than the inmates.

As the prophet Bob Dylan once sang:

Sometimes I think this whole world
Is one big prison yard
Some of us are prisoners
The rest of us are guards

Wasn't it Mahathir who proposed the accursed Bakun Dam, even though Malaysia was producing an excess of electricity? He had this hare-brained scheme of piping the power from Sarawak to Peninsular Malaysia through a 700km undersea cable. Never mind that the dam project required the resettlement of more than 10,000 indigenous people and would result in an area of pristine rainforest the size of Singapore being inundated. Mahathir's can-do contractor crony, Ting Pek Khiing, was more than happy to clear the designated area of foliage and foist the hardwoods on the Japs.

And if that wasn't stupid enough, Mahathir also signed a secret pact in 1994 with YTL and other independent power producers (IPPs), forcing Tenaga Nasional to buy their excess electricity at an exorbitant rate. This binding contract will only expire in 2015. As a result Tenaga Nasional has had to keep increasing the household price of electricity to protect itself from bankruptcy.


In a country located directly above the Equator which receives the full strength of the Sun at least 360 days out of every year, a truly visionary leader would have invested in alternative energy decades ago. By now Malaysia would be enjoying clean, renewable - and free - solar energy, augmented by wind and tidal power. But, then, this would disallow the power-producing corporations and their Umno/BN cronies from enriching themselves at the people's expense.

Of late there has even been ominous talk of going nuclear. Can you imagine the awful hazards nuclear power would incur, especially in a country rife with corruption at all levels?

Still, it's never too late to get wise and do a U-turn from the inevitable catastrophe of overdependence on fossil fuels. There are zero point technologies just waiting to be tested and implemented which have the potential of providing virtually free energy. Of course, these astonishing breakthroughs have constantly been suppressed by the incumbent power structure to keep themselves in power ad infinitum.

Can you envisage dumping the inefficient and highly polluting petrol or diesel-powered engine and opting for transport mechanisms that run on water?

This is a vast and complex topic I'm hinting at and there's no way I can do justice to it here - nor do I have enough expertise in this field to say anything original about it - but I'm totally convinced that once we successfully reclaim our power from the parasitic corporations and the secret government they support, unimaginable revelations will become accessible to everybody on Earth, not just in Malaysia.

Human beings will no longer be manipulated and exploited by the rich and powerful, and kept enslaved by their own fear and ignorance.

THERE IS NO ENERGY SHORTAGE. THE UNIVERSE OPERATES ON INFINITE ABUNDANCE. HOWEVER, WE SHALL NEVER DISCOVER THIS UNTIL WE STOP RAPING THE ENVIRONMENT AND BEGIN TO LOOK UPON MOTHER NATURE WITH PROFOUND APPRECIATION AND SPONTANEOUS REVERENCE.

I would like to see a Malaysia where we no longer have to stop people from logging and mining and other destructive activities through strict legislation (which is pretty difficult to enforce anyhow, especially when the perpetrators of serious eco-crimes happen to be good friends of, or related to, the Chief Minister).

For this to happen, we must have a clean government that is open to alternative and innovative solutions that benefit everybody - not just an elite capitalist clique.

The present model of government is diseased. It isn't grounded in a holistic perception of reality. Instead, executive decisions and policies have largely been motivated by greed and powerlust. This is the disastrous outcome when business hops into bed with politics and conspires to steal the land from right under people's feet.


The long-term well-being of the land and all its inhabitants definitely does not feature in the twisted visions of hubristic leaders like Mahathir Mohamad. Only with the end of Mahathirism will our scarred and traumatized nation begin to regain its sense of priorities.

Only then will we have the intelligence and foresight to install new leaders whose hearts have not been hardened by cynicism and whose minds are receptive to fresh inputs from unexpected sources.


Where Malaysia is headed (Part 5)