All You Need Is Love

Today marks the 1st anniversary of Yasmin Ahmad’s passing.    To most Malaysians, there is no further introduction required.  Everyone carries with them memories of her.  A privileged few had the opportunity to work with her and others might have had the chance to meet her.  Even the ones that did not meet her in person would speak of how her presence radiates whenever they watched her many films and advertisements.  Yes, whether intentionally or unintentionally, she spoke strongly to all of us.  And her’s was a message of love.  Unconditional love for humanity itself.  The advertisement below says it all.

We lost a lot on that fateful day of July 25, 2009.  A voice that cut through a lot of nonsense that we’ve unfortunately gotten used to in this country.  Will there be another?  Maybe not embodied in an individual, but her voice was that of a collective Malaysia.  I think we should take cue from that and continue the legacy through whatever tiny acts we’re capable of.

A good friend of mine, Hafiz Ibrahim, was interviewed by BFM as part of this tribute to Yasmin Ahmad.

Silly wrong, vivid right

Drinking in the morning sun
Blinking in the morning sun
Shaking off the heavy one
Heavy like a loaded gun

What made me behave that way?
Using words I never say
I can only think it must be love
Oh, anyway, it’s looking like a beautiful day

Someone tell me how I feel
It’s silly wrong but vivid right
Oh, kiss me like the final meal
Yeah, kiss me like we die tonight

Cause holy cow, I love your eyes
And only now I see the light
Yeah, lying with me half-awake
Oh, anyway, it’s looking like a beautiful day

When my face is chamois-creased
If you think I’ll wink, I did
Laugh politely at repeats
Yeah, kiss me when my lips are thin

Cause holy cow, I love your eyes
And only now I see you like
Yeah, lying with me half-awake
Stumbling over what to say
Well, anyway, it’s looking like a beautiful day

So throw those curtains wide
One day like this a year would see me right

happy birthday shaja

I’m not sure what motivated me to write this.  It could’ve been the final episode of Six Feet Under, the one with that brilliant but morbid end sequence and Sia Furler’s “Breathe Me” playing in the background.  (*The clip is at the end of this post if you’re interested) Or was it the birthday reminder I noticed on my Facebook page.

Just over 6 months ago, an ex-colleague and friend of mine Shaja passed away.  She would’ve been 30 today.  To be perfectly honest, I was probably more of a colleague than a friend of hers since she had her circle of friends and I had mine.  But her passing affected me in a bigger way that I would’ve imagined.  I guess I realised that life was indeed short, and the frightening thing is that fact is often lost in the muddle of daily life.

We all read books, don’t we?  What makes a book a book?  Individual letter woven into words, which are in turn woven into phrases, sentence, paragraphs and chapters stitched together intricately by a master craftsman?  Or is it the white space between each letter, word or phrase that clearly defines their role in the book that determines its meaning?

What about music?  Without the split second silence between music notes or drum beats, all we have is noise.  That brief moment of silence gives it meaning.

That unfortunate day over 6 months ago was probably my white space.  My brief moment of silence between the music notes in a piece called Suren’s life.  That forces you to take a step back and ask yourself the really tough questions.  That was the moment when I decided I needed to quit my job, although it did take 6 months to work out the plan.  I guess in a way, I have Shaja to thank for that.  Thank you Shaja for reminding me to really live.  And happy birthday.  You’re still very much in our thoughts.

The Void

This evening I finally managed my first 10km run without walking since December last year.  And this after running every now and then since early this month.  With exactly month to go until the Standard Chartered Kuala Lumpur Marathon, I’m already at the half mark.  But we all know that running, like many other things in life, does not progress in a linear fashion.  At some point, it’ll eventually plateau and it’ll take awhile before you progress to the next level.  Let’s just hope that the plateau happens after the 21km mark.

Now running through a checklist of what I did right this time around, since I’ve failed miserably in previous attempts to run a full 10km, I came up with the following:-

a) I switched trails.  Starting from Damansara Perdana, running into Mutiara Damansara and back to Damansara Perdana was a fresh change from the usual Kota Damansara loop which is filled with construction sites, people moving back and forth and cars on the main road.

b) A running buddy helps a lot.  Running with my buddy Hafiz today helped me to try keep a steady pace.  I’m notorious for over extending myself over the first 3 clicks which doesn’t give my body enough time to warm up for the remaining part of the run.  I felt pain in the first 3 clicks today, but because the pace was steady my body coped and from that point onwards running was pretty mechanical, my breath was steady and I felt virtually no strain till the end.

c) I’ve been in a pretty shitty mood over the past week and I think this helped my run, as mentioned in my as of now hypothesis here.

d) I ran without my iPod.  Now this is something very subjective as some people claim to run better with music.  I personally feel a lot more comfortable without one.  It allows me to go into what Murakami calls a void.  Your own personal space.  And what does someone do with his personal space?  Nothing at all!  I know this sounds cheesy but try it.  It can be a very profound experience.  Everyone needs a void every once in awhile.  And that’s something a Vulcan will never understand.  *I couldn’t help the pop culture reference.  Sorry!

Life and Drink Stations

It’s been about a week since I tendered my resignation from my job to explore the infinite possibilities that life has to offer. And I found myself more inspired to get cracking at work than I’ve ever been in a long time. I was engrossed with work all of Friday night, hit a wall on Saturday that rendered me utterly useless having only written one paragraph of a proposal the entire day and resuming work with a fresh sense of vigor on Sunday morning & afternoon.

I guess you can draw some parallels between running and setting out to reinvent your life. You’re at the starting line with tens of thousands of others. You see your friends beyond the barricade separating runners and observers, rallying for you with all the enthusiasm. You are all prepped and hyped up for the journey ahead. And then the gun goes off. The first few miles go in a breeze. Your running is fueled by a pure sense of novelty.

Midway through the run, the first signs of fatigue kick in. Your body starts giving signals to your mind and before you know it, they’re both talking a different language to each other. At this point in time, it becomes more and more of a physical exertion to cross each mile. The tens of thousands of people you started with, slowly dwindle down to the tens of people until eventually you find yourself alone. Even if you aren’t alone, the physical stress gives you that impression that no one else understands the pain you go through. Every now and then, you see people by the wayside cheering runners randomly and that gives you a short boost even though you know they aren’t actually talking to you. You start praying for the next closest checkpoint, drinking station or Power Gel station to charge up.

Eventually you manage to cobble down the miles and find yourself at the very last mile. At this point, a vision of whatever you set out to do becomes clearer and euphoria that you once experienced long ago at the starting line begins to reappear. You continue to batter your limbs to the point of exhaustion because you sense that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Eventually that dim light you see at the horizon grows brighter and brighter. The fanfare becomes louder and louder. Vague shapes of people by the side of the road become clearer until you eventually recognize them as your friends cheering you to finish what you started. You see signs of a homecoming of sorts greeting you as you cobble up those last strides leading to a line signifying that you have indeed arrived. Finally you make it past that line and it’s all over.

This probably applies to all forms of runners; the guys taking part in their first fun run, half marathoners like myself and especially (I would imagine) marathoners, seasoned or otherwise. Would that be the same for entrepreneurs; guys like me who are just starting out or even seasoned entrepreneurs looking at new opportunities for growth? In any case, both running and reinventing lives take more than just sheer talent. Mental and physical discipline to take you to that finish line are equally if not more important. And that is a lesson that running can teach us.

At least that’s what I tell myself as I huddle across the first mile checkpoint in my race to reinvent myself. I hope there’s a drink station up ahead.

Transient happiness

Bought myself a new new pair of New Balance 1063s today (my old new pair got flicked last month, remember?)  And today, I decided to give it a trial run.

Wasn’t a very good run though.  I could barely complete the 10km loop (around Kota Damansara & Mutiara Damansara) I set out to do.  However, as I was huffing and puffing as I made my way downhill amidst the new housing development in Mutiara Damansara; with cement mixers, decks of wood and broken bricks and gravel serving as obstacle courses, I got to thinking:  Is there a correlation between the distance we run and our general state of happiness?

Judging from today’s experience, my take is that it is inversely related.  The happier we are, the shorter the distance we cover.  Do we really run when we’re depressed, upset or generally pissed off?  And how to endorphines work anyway?  Is it a case of feel like shit, run, endorphins kick in, feel happy, run like shit the next day?  I don’t know.

Or maybe it’s the pizza I had 2 hours before my run.  I’m not too sure.

Think I’m gonna throw up now.

The April Roundup – Dude, do not lose the plot!!

April came and went in a breeze.  From a running perspective, it started off badly with me abandoning my routine late evening/night runs to scoot off to a host of parties (including my birthday!).  Don’t get me wrong, I loved it but it takes awhile to get back in stride when you go on a one-week, 1-2 bottles a night drinking spree with your buddies, capping it off with the famous Jalan Alor beef noddles to sober yourself up.  So in a way, it was fun but I left with a sense of regret that I was wasting the month away.

Managed to get things back on track towards the second half of the month.  Which proved to be a rather eventful period.  And because I’ve missed out on a lot of blogging, here’s a point-form summary of what happened.

1. Started running short distances 3-4 times a week

2. Discovered a new route, the Plaza Damas-Sri Hartamas loop, which is an awesome place for hill runs

3. Went for Pushmore twice and severely injured myself in the process 

4. Went to the NB store in Midvalley and discovered that the guy who “signed” me up for Pacesetters decided to scoot off with my 50 bucks, and no one has an idea where he is.  *Because of this, I was deprived of a 30% discount for my new pair of shoes which would’ve saved me 150 bucks!

4. Bought a new pair of New Balance 1063, which I immediately fell in love with

5. Discovered that someone stole my NB 1063 shoes from my apartment a week after I bought it (Clocked less than 40km on the damn pair!) *sob sob

6. Finally signed up for the Stan Chart KL Marathon in June 09.

7. Booked a flight ticket for the upcoming Borneo Marathon (Kota Kinabalu, Sabah) in October 09.

Let’s see what’s in store for May.

Sleepless Sunday

Last night, I had a lot of difficulty trying to catch some decent sleep.  Was out with some friends around the neighbourhood till midnight and then went back home to work on some slides for my presentations at the MSC Malaysia – NINA Incubator Management Workshop.  By the time I decided to hit the sack, it was probably about 2am.

In a state of deep sleep, I once again entered a dreamy state which always seemed to revolve around the same theme; being chased or having to chase.  You’ll probably read about this sort of recurring dream a million times in dream psychology books so I’ll stop right there to avoid sounding like a broken record.  Needless to say, I woke up sweating profusely and heart beating like the pistons of Jenson Button’s winning F1 car in Sunday’s Australian GP.  I got up, went to the kitchen to get some water and tried to compose myself.  Checked my watch and the time read 5.30am.

What immediately came to mind as I was sitting on my chair, booting up my computer, was a conversation I had with my friends Chak* and Joyce a couple of weeks back on the subject of dreams.  I talked about this recurring dream of mine, to which Chak pointed out the irony that I run in my waking hours.  Now the question that came to mind is, where did this motivation to run come from?  Was it triggered by the subconcious considering the fact that I’ve had this dream for years?  In the same manner you would think of the life-art conundrum, does life imitate dreams or is the opposite true?

*Chak is my Superbar bandmate who also runs a Web 2.0 start-up called Foldees.com, which was recently voted Top 10 Most Interesting Web 2.0 Use by Malaysian Brands by GreyReview.

Third attempt at doing this

I know, it’s pretty lame but blame in on my horoscope. I’m an Aries and we’re excellent starters but lousy finishers. Thus explaining why my last two blogs crashed gloriously in flames.

Let’s just hope I keep this going on my third attempt.