Back to Ordinary World

This year has been tough for us. Endless overtime, continous broken promises, and temporary shortage of lifelines plus a stockpile of debt. After what happened two years ago, I always thought the worst is over, but who knows what was just waiting on the corner. You would think two weeks with nothing to do or one month salary due is bad, imagine twice as bad, and you have a family. Looking back now, it's quite amazing, extremely lucky to be able to get out of the situation in one piece. Of course, we still clean up the wreckage. Hopefully, the worst is really over this time. One can only hope and pray for the best, and always learn to survive.

(We Are) Spirits in the Material World

Eid has passed, another procession of homecoming (sort of), family gathering, and the travel within. An annual pilgrimage that started with a thrilling hunt for transportation apparatus, back and forth. The logistical supply management came along eventually. When the deadline approach, the tension got higher, and the stakes got bigger. Finally, we make it through, complete with hectic journey and temporarily missing child. When the big day came, another journey in the heat to attend two family gatheering simultaneously. Just another routine, but surprisingly this year, these moments are a little bit interesting, even my wife thought so. When the themes for both occasions are completely opposite, talking about entrepeneurship and civil service as a life choice. Entrepeneurship, as in the jargon "Become your own employer" and "It's better to be a big fish in a small pond". Contrarily, the civil service is about the peace of mind and respectability of others. To complete the polarization, we have the third family gathering to balance them, to place spirituality vis-a-vis materiality. You cannot be more lucky (or confused) than that.

Immortality

My former boss died the other day, of stroke. He's just five months younger than me. When it's true that someone's death make us think about ours to come, nothing beats the death of someone close to us. Ironically, I've been ut of touch with him for about ten years, apart from social media interaction, which also rarely. I know that he seems didn't care much about his health. IT people typical, he works without limits, eat what he likes, and no (or minimum) workout. Knowing his death cause is the same as my father is still shocking though. And I still don't take the "explanation" that some curse causes it, no matter what the online noises said these days. He was a hardworking, no-nonsense type of guy. If we get the jargon "No Action, Talk Only" or "NATO" , for him it's "Big Talk, Hard Work". He always talk what he wants, spontaneously, straight to the point no second thought. Unfortunately, the social media heat lately has become poisonous and deceiving. As though we are forced to take sides, two extreme ones. Sadly, a couple years ago, a fellow programmer had an accident, got paralyzed, and eventually died. There were some coverage on the news, a couple of online website wrote his story sympathetically. Today, when he died, only a single coverage from online news website. The rest is followups to the curse and bullying, even sounds like a celebration of his death. This is a guy that works for his country, educating youth to create new IT developers, from any background. No mean of disrespect, but the late programmer I mention above was nothing compare to him, even when they both are good friends. And people will only remember his "blasphemy" and "curse" that lead to his sickness and eventual death.