Monday, January 02, 2006

It's all a fairy tale.

Ever since I started work again, I find myself having less time to talk about myself in this blog (now, that could be a good thing, since I can be very boring and self-centered most of the time). But, this is the new year--2006--and I want to make sometime for myself to rethink about some setbacks in life, retrospect on the past and get hindsight about the reality of life for the last, almost 29 years of my life.

What I'll be talking about is something metaphorical, the good life of richness and wealth, also known in this context as milk and honey.

Year end 2005, as I was talking to a friend in a Cafe, a subject about why are we here came up? The discussion came to a few questions left unanswered. For example, years ago, when we were younger, our teachers, our parents and every single adult we met told us that we should work hard, study hard and a life of milk and honey will await us. And so we did, we worked hard. We studied hard. We put aside the fun menacing life that we could have, that could have been, a lifetime memory to be remembered. Today, we find it hard to drink milk or even look at honey, speaking figuratively. It is as if we were told to believe in a fairy tale. Something much similar to believing in Santa Claus (be good and you'll get your present this christmas) and the tooth fairy. Semuanya, cerita dongeng.

It left us baffled as to why we find those who seemed to be an idiot in school, a loser to friends and a moron to teachers are now seen as the bearer of milk and honey. Why? Is it nepotism? Is it politics? Is it corruption? What could it be? What's the secret ingredient that would allevate a human's social status?

But there are also those who were losers, and remain losers. There are those who were idiots who are now millionaires. And there are some ugly people out there, who turns out to be rich and handsome. Of course there are people who are ugly before and today are uglier and fat. It seems that there are no positive co-relation to a successful life. Or atleast, we can't find a good explanation for their misfortune or their good fortune.

The path of good life, seems to occur without explanation. Some are lucky to merry someone rich. Some are unlucky to merry someone who is an adulterer. Some are lucky and unlucky to get both? Did the lucky ones did something right in the past that they deserved remuneration and the unlucky ones did something terribly wrong in the past that they deserved a scourged life?

We come to realise one thing that seems unexplainable. The river of milk and honey is not something that flows to whom that deserves it. But it flows in random chance and disorder, and god is the person with the magic hand that decides where the river should flow. Or atleast that's the best way we can explain such injustice.....

As for me, I'm glad that I led a mediocre life. I was not such a goody-goody good boy in school. I'm glad I was the guy known to teachers as Joey the Menace. I'll be really disappointed today if I really believed in the fairy tales they told us before, cause at least today, I have an excuse for a life of mediocrity.

Finally, our conclusion to the discussion was, "rezeki itu datangnya dari tuhan". Good fortune comes from the almighty god, creator of heavens and earth. What else can you say about it? Science obviously can't explain it.....