Therapy session with a pighead

I know I shouldn't have, but I couldn't resist continuing my online conversation with that twerp who fouled up my FB inbox with his presumptious, arrogant behaviour making fun of my one little article. True it was made me very upset, as evident from my last post. Fortunately, I have a bit more maturity and self esteem than a regular teenager, else I might have ended up like one of those unfortunate cyber bullied suicide cases. However, I have to admit that I'm not really that mature. After getting it into my head that he was just an annoying nobody trying to prove himself better than me, I've spent all my life being mostly nice and trying to refrain from being insulting or berating even to obviously obnoxious people online, and here was the one person whom I could unleashed all the frustrations I have on and not worry about him feeling bad about it, since he wasn't capable about feeling bad about anything. Again, won't go into the details, but it was quite therapeutic in a way. But I've had my fun and not angry anymore, so decided to block his royal pompousness.

I know I kinda made it out like I feel like there are only pigheads in my life, which is of course not true, and it would be a very lame reason to want to leave the country. I have many good friends, those who actually read this ranting blog included, whom would certainly be missed if I really actually get round to moving over to another country. I don't actually know if such a move would really make me happy... maybe it would make it worse. But on the logical side of things, I have the future of 3 nieces to think about and looking at the way things are going here, I can't help but think that the only way to ensure a good future for them is to make sure they can get an easy ticket out of the country through me. Oh well, still depends on my own luck on getting a PR. Perhaps I should try looking for an Aussie guy online to help along the process.

Huuuhuhu, I'm kidding.

A ugly face of a 'true Malaysian'

So my other blog got quite a bit of attention recently due to a certain article I wrote that went pretty viral, and this blog might be feeling a tad bit lonely these days. I'd been doing much better in the past couple of months after a couple of years of brooding and making this piece of online space my little place to brood. I started caring about things a little bigger than myself, being more aware of the news and especially taking to the FMT website and enjoying little debates with commenters there. As things were getting rather kooky in this country over the past weeks and seeing a lot of angry tirades online about certain issues, I felt motivated to write that article, wanting to do a local language version as it was meant for a certain target audience, but decided to do an English version first so gauge if my opinion really reflected that of others. It got a lot more nods than I expected, even making it onto the blog of a local respected politician. Of course, that made me little proud of myself, like my first little achievement since coming out of my emotional slump, but the intention wasn't to inflate my ego, it was to try and bridge a gap. So I wrote the local version, not really knowing if it would really make any difference to make things better but helping at least it would to a few people. But feeling a bit frustrated too coz' I know it's not much, and I even considered a few times just quitting my job and becoming one of the things I'd never thought I'd want to be... a damn politician. I even had the funny idea of taking a few weeks off to travel to Sabah and Sarawak and educate the poor people there so they know a little better next election, but it was a crazy idea of one person and I know I can't make much difference without a team at least.

Couple of days ago, along comes this message on my FB from some Chinese guy I don't know who pretty much starts berating me for that article and making all sorts of assumptions about my intentions. That I just want attention to stoke my ego. That I'm just a 'keyboard warrior' with no idea what I'm writing coz' I'm a typical Chinese who have little friends of that race which makes me 'less Malaysian', and urbanites don't need that message anymore (which I personally feel is mostly but not completely true, based on my observation and even my own colleagues). The best part was him calling me a college kid, which I shall take as a compliment that I look younger than I am. But all in all, it was infuriating that some stranger pretty much came up and flung all sorts of assumptions about what kind of person I am and how little I actually know based on one article I wrote. His argument? That the real work needed to be done on the ground with the rural folks, not urban ones, which is what he and a group of multiracial friends are doing. Which is great work, of course, which I respect. What I didn't respect was him proclaiming that made him so much more of a true Malaysian than me, in addition to his continued beration of me and accusations that I didn't know what really needs to be done to make the country a better place. The fact that I had aging parents and the future educational costs of 3 nieces to think about is just an excuse. And my explanation that I don't have many friends of 'that' race is mainly because I'm generally untrusting and introverted in the first place, with people of any race, was just me trying to get 'sympathy'. Even when I did admit that I did feel little proud of that article because it was the first big thing I did since my depression and having lived a life where I felt like my opinons don't matter even to my own mum, this insensitive turd had only one word for me. Pathetic. All this coming from someone who is supporting the same side as me, and claims himself to be a 'true Malaysian', but only made himself out to be the most arrogant and judgemental person I've met in my life. 

I don't intend to go into the details of my conversation of him. I do think I was an idiot trying to justify myself to another idiot who knew nothing about me but pretended like he knows everything. If he had talked with a little politeness and explained his work, I would have been so much more supportive of his work. But instead his behaviour was just like the infuriating leaders of this country. Not making any effort to understand the problems of people different from them and then misjudging their intentions, and provoking people to become angry and inflamed to the point of petty arguments about stupid things that don't matter in the big picture. The only difference is that anyone misjudged by the leaders gets charged and thrown in jail, while this turd was just being an annoying little prick. So much that he got the honour of being on the receiving end of my own little tirade of foul language that no one else in my life has ever heard me speak.

Actually, it wasn't so much me being mad at him. After all, he's just a stranger trying to stoke his own ego by belittling some miniscule efforts of an ordinary person while he runs back to his gang and makes fun of me like an immature high school jock (yeah, his royal pompousness told me that's exactly what he would do). What I am really mad at is why this had to happen, after so long of trying to work through my internal issues and trying to open up with people. And especially, after almost decided to go back to church again, which I did last week when I visited CBC. Why, just when I'm starting to turn my life around and have a bit more faith in the goodness of humanity does one stupid annoying little imbecile have to come along and unravel everything? If it's true that God works through people, I can only wonder what great and awesome plan he has for sending the biggest pighead in the country into my life to undermine my self-worth, in addition to all the other pigheads I've known although their pigheadedness was nothing compared to this. Really, God? I don't think I think I ask for much, just one person among 7 billion people whom I can really connect with so I don't have to deal with a messed up world by myself. Even in my latest attempt to join some social events to get to know more people, the curse of meeting weird guys strikes me again. Which is another story in itself which I decided was not worth ranting about anymore, and just consider another amusing addition to the collection of weird guys I meet. At least this time, I know I'm not the only one who sees him as weird, coz' it turned out he and I have mutual friends whom when I asked them about el weirdo, spent an entire night telling me the many ways in which he pissed them off.

I guess it's still for the best to assume there really is no God, so the most logical explanation is that I must have done something really terrible in a past life that karma is coming back to bite me in the ass. Whatever it is, whatever motivation I had to make something little better of myself and try and make some small difference is kinda down the tube right now. I had recently starting asking some friends in Australia about life there and prospects of getting a PR, just considering a move as an option. But after meeting the face of a true Malaysian and finding out a true Malaysian has the ugliest character among everyone I've ever met, I guess my decision is pretty much made up. No need to stay in a country where one is not appreciated, not by leaders and not even by people supposed to be on the same camp. I guess that makes me selfish and immature, but hey, if life's a bitch, after a while, you just need to be a bitch right back.

Renewed

The past month has been pretty good. Good in that every negative feeling just dissolved into nothing and I feel almost like a third person looking at myself and my situation and analyzing things from a calmer and more positive perspective. I've been quiet about it coz' I wasn't quite sure if was just a temporary after effect of what was possibly my most emotionally challenging period. But it seems like the effect of that experience may have effectively short circuited the part of my brain connected to the ability to feel pissed. Or maybe I was so pissed, I completely exhausted my internal supply of pissiness. Whatever the reason, I'm no longer pissed, or sad, or lonely. I've just been thinking and digesting my newfound state of mind and now I think I'm actually happy.


I now consider it possible that all the shit in my life happened for a reason. Possibly to make me less judgemental of people who make mistakes when they are frustrated with life, which probably puts me in a better position to counsel people who are going through difficulties. It's easy to see someone doing something harmful to themselves like smoking, doing drugs, spending unnecesssary money til they go bankrupt and assume they are just idiots. It's easy because when you have not done something similar or equally stupid out of desperation, you have no understanding of what drives a person to do such things. Like I used to wonder why educated, intelligent people who are perfectly aware of the health risks of smoking would start anyway. I've talked to friends who are smokers. They know dang well that smoking is going to kill them faster, but they do it anyway because it's difficult to stop and they started doing it because something drove them to do it. And I kinda get that. I've also talked to people who have not made such mistakes in life, not because they don't have difficulties, but it's easier to not want to jump into doing stupid things when you have a support system like supporting family or friends. And well, they just don't get it, why I did what I did. Evidently I've come to the point where I think talking to happy people about my problems isn't going to help coz' they wouldn't understand and I wouldn't wanna make happy people depressed anyway. Talking to jaded people also might not be good coz' I'd make them even more jaded.

The best people to talk to are those who've gone through similar shit and come out of it with still a positive mindset. At this point in time, I only know one such person. And that person once told me that he's been working on trying to widen his social circle, try new activities and also considering volunteering for Befrienders to counsel people. And I think that's a path I should go along as well. I've been trying out Play By Ear guitar lessons, so see if I can do something more impressive on a guitar other than basic strumming. I heard about this new dance/fitness fad called Bokwa and sounds interesting, so I contacted an instructor and hopefully will join some workshops in the near future...maybe train to be a part-time instructor, depending on my time and interest. Maybe not jumping into the Befrienders things, coz' I don't think I'm quite ready for counselling to that extent. I'd be one of those counsellors that if some annoying teenager started whining over the phone to me about stories like she's in love with A, but A is infatuated with B, and B is a jerk, I might start to hurl. But I'm just doing easier stuff, like if I see a friend on FB in a dejected mood, then I just try to give some advice or lighten them up.


Another possibility is that going through many disappointments is a way of making sure I don't take for granted something good if I get it. My blog these past few years has been nothing more but me getting hung up on my problems. But not everything sucks. In fact, I have a lot of good things going for me now. I like the place I'm staying at now, even though it's rented but I have good neighbours and I have gotten to know some good people around my neighbourhood. I have an adorable and loving dog who always makes me smile even though he likes to high five me on the face when I'm on the couch or bed. I have some reliable and good friends, especially a couple of female friends who've been making a lot of effort to keep in touch with me since they knew about my recent meltdown. And most unexpectedly is that I've gotten very good pay raises in the past one year, and I've just been promoted to assistant manager of my department, though I'm on probation for 3 months, after which I get another raise. So finances are not an issue, I have no commitments, no husband to appease, no kids to take care of, and with my new position, I will probably have more opportunities to travel to places other than boring old Indonesia. And since I've had plenty of experience taking care of myself and being independant, I'm in the best position right now to get out there and experience the world and try to make a difference doing the sustainability related work I do. 

And to think, all this time I've been moping around about not being able to find love and feeling lonely. Good grief, how much time I wasted harping on that when I could have used my time better to unleash my full potential instead of hoping someone else would make me happy. Sure, I may never know what it's like to have someone I can trust enough to talk to about anything and everything. Or if I have problems, I have to fix it myself. Or if I want something or lose something, I have to buy it myself. Or if I want to watch a concert of a relatively unknown band or movie, no one's going to take the time to watch it with me just because. But since life has turned out so perfectly well that I can easily take care of myself and enjoy my independant life doing whatever the heck I want... well, I can't really complain now, can I?

Of course, I may end up living my life so much that I grow old with no close family or friends.... but well, my friend who's experienced shit and now feels positive about life also has an interesting idea on how he plans to deal with that. I won't go into the details, coz' it not something most people would think is a good idea. But basically. his plan is to be productive for as long as possible, and once he reaches the point where he no longer able to contribute to the world and no one is there to take care of him, then well, he'll simply take care of himself. 

Hmm, will cross that bridge when I come to it. It's going to be another weeks of travelling and soon I'm going to have to fly.

Footsteps

Well this explanation makes sense too.

He called me to say that two drowning people cannot keep each other afloat

And made it clear we can't contact again for a long time so we could both find ourselves again.

Today I visited City Discipleship Presbyterian Church and asked to visit a cell group.

I really feel like Switchfoot wrote the soundtrack to my life.