Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?

I took a five day vacation, around three days off in total. Made sure I did enough work to fill up my own self-imposed quota while I was gone.

I needed the vacation. I developed anxiety issues in recent months and that manifested in several ways. The most damaging of which I began smoking again. I stole a few cigarettes here and there until I was smoking maybe four sticks a day.

A far cry from four packs a day, but I was frustrated that I got back to my old stressed out days.

See, just before my heart attack last year, I was in a state of bliss. I was running a consultancy business that could be my endgame. I needed to make around RM2 to 4 million and then retire before I was 40.

Things start to go wrong, but like any gambler, you double down, hoping to make good on some losses. It got so bad that I had my cardiac event. I had four risk factors through the roof - smoking four packs a day, eating whatever, whenever, and a high-stress job. The fourth is genetics - both sides of my family suffer from critical illnesses though one or several heart attacks and/or strokes never took any of us out. My family members are extremely hard to kill.

Anyway, I was bothered by the fact that I lost that bliss I enjoyed before the heart attack. My calmness was shattered. I began to allow myself to be affected by idiots again, by liars and pretenders. Motherfuckers all of them. Not worth a single hair on my ass.

Back home, my parents' situations continue to worsen. There is nothing more I can do for them in order to improve their being and their experience of the world, and I hated accepting that.

So I went to the Source of All Power. I went to Thailand, where I originally found my peace. I wanted to retrace my steps and to remember what it was all about.

And so I went.

Five days there, and no less than four different people on four separate occasions told me the same thing, "Slowly."

Apparently, even while sitting down quietly and waiting, my energy was one of anxious anticipation. See, I like being smarter than everyone else, and to me, being smarter meant I could anticipate any and all moves, all the time, every time.

I run countless continuous simulations inside my head on how things will unfold. This is extremely useful at work, but I had begun incorporating it into my personal being and this easily becomes toxic.

Whenever you anticipate the outcomes of any situation, you will flag all the bad ones as well. In fact, you will focus more on the bad possibilities and come up with plans and contingencies for each separate bad possibility.

I have always been extremely lucky, but I am also never wrong whenever I anticipate the evil in humanity. I understand the evil that lurks in the hearts of men. And women. And things.

So anyway, I was in Thailand and away from everyone. I couldn't find my copy of A New Earth so I brought Eckhart Tolle's other book - The Power of Now. This happens to be exactly the book I needed to read. In fact, if I could sum up my trip, it would be that I got exactly what I needed at exactly the right time. I felt spoiled because I got everything I asked for. Everything.

From the time I arrived, I met exactly the right people telling me the exact information I needed at the time. For example, I needed to get on a bus to Pattaya. A tour lady hailed me to the side and asked me whether I was going to Pattaya on a bus and if I wanted a taxi to go to the bus station. As a tour lady, I thought she was going to sell me one of her tour packages, but she just gave me good advice and good direction. "There are two bus stations - Morchit and Ekkamai. Morchit is closer to Don Mueang. Don't take airport taxi. Take meter taxi."

Every step of the way, I was given valid intel and useful information. This was a refreshing change from Malaysia where I constantly have to navigate one pile of bullshit after another. People lie a lot here, but during my vacation, there was no need for any of them to lie and even when some do, I was not affected by the lies at all.

The difference is energy. There is a desperation here, in Malaysia, and there is a quiet calm in Thailand. I don't know why.

In offices, people build forts out of cubicles and then they either hold a siege or believe themselves to be under siege. Alliances are made, and broken. The backstabbing, back-biting and blood-letting is silly because none of them are fighting for RM42 billion or even a RM42,000/month salary. It's pathetic and insulting. A lot of Malaysians do not live in gratitude. Tak sedar dek untung, cakap orang Melayu.

Meanwhile, in some of the seedier underbellies of global prostitution, there are people whose jobs it is to suck dicks every day. Their daily drama is 'can I suck enough dicks today to put food on the table?' and they're still very calm and happy.

We have it good. We have food, relatively fast internet (though Thailand's broadband is cheaper and more or less the same as ours, from one consumer's perspective), cheap clothes and adequate shelter.

This does not mean we should be thankful to politicians, who remain the one blight on humanity. Politicians are parasites and should be dealt with accordingly. Why would anyone want to honour people whose job it is to lie to you everyday? Politicians are liars and we should move beyond them by not giving them any focus whatsoever. If we listen to politicians, I assure you we will start killing each other in whatever name is trendy at the time.

Thailand and other countries such as Indonesia do not give a fuck about politicians in the sense that no matter who is in power, it's mostly business as usual. Indonesia does not have a Finas and their movie industry is arguably churning out better films. Thailand's tourism industry is still running strong despite massive changes in Government. In fact, numbers have only grown over the past 12 years despite political instability.

We Malaysians cannot give so much power to politicians and political parties to decide and do everything for us that when they fall - AND THEY WILL ALL FUCKING FALL - all our industries will also shatter and the nation would crumble to the ground.

We should be independent of politicians and politics. Fuck them. Fuck them to hell.

Anyway, I managed to exhale and reset everything. As I began to see things from the perspective of the now and not the past or the future, I began to relax again.

One of the things that affected me with my anxiety was an outbreak of pompholyx on my hand. Pompholyx is a type of eczema that only affects the extremities such as fingers and toes. It got better and tonight, my hand is completely healed.

Evil people will continue to be evil and petty. I don't have to deal with their bullshit in any way shape or form. Fuck them and their entire family.

Shifting my focus from the future to the present solves my anxiety issues. The future does not happen except as the present, and rather than a million different possibilities, there is only one reality, one outcome, and it is always now.

Doesn't mean I have stopped planning or anticipating things, but I have separated my thinking self and my real self. I have the Greatest Mind of the 21st Century, but I am not my mind. This separation is vital in order to stay sane.

There are other things, of course, but I am taking care of myself first and ensuring my mental and emotional health are as good as my physical health. I've stopped smoking again and I hope this time it sticks.

Fumes

It's been 10 months since I had a break. Then the whole heart attack thing happened and I've been on a mission of recovery ever since. My father took a turn for the worse and is now very, very angry. My mother is not doing so well either.

I am physically, mentally and emotionally drained. Been running on fumes for the past year. I remember all the high hopes and broken promises and despair that led to my severe health crisis.

I'm not really angry at having a heart attack at 34. First of all, I have dropped 21kg and am now very thin and sexy. I can fuck half of KL if I wanted to, but I'm way too busy.

I could have done a half-assed job at work, but I just couldn't. I had to drive myself to the brink and the past few weeks, I've been stepping on the gas a bit too much. I'm doing it all alone, not like I have a bunch of slaves or anything. But this is a better way of doing it. Other people can't be trusted. Best to go at it alone for as much as you can.

And yet last weekend I felt re-energised with the comics thing. Maple Comics - the company I started with Roy - has published three titles in six months and is on track to release six to seven titles this year.

If I could choose to do just one thing, I'd love to do Maple Comics full time. We have total control over things and if there are fuck ups, it's ours. We own it, good and bad. We do not have to answer for other people's shit.

Last weekend, I was on the panel at Comics Arts Fest KL. I will be on the panel again for Cooler Lumpur this weekend.

After that, I'm going for a break. Taking some days off. I'll be back later. Hopefully rejuvenated and resurrected.

Negativitity and Sucking Dicks

Just saw Another Country - a play showcasing Malaysian and Singaporean works and performers. Review coming out in The Malaysian Reserve early next week. Won't say much but it is a sign of a great play that it gets me thinking.

For some reason, the past few months, I have been meeting Malaysians who have spent some time in the States. Their observations and message are consistent. Why are Malaysians so negative?

I immediately felt responsible, partly because everything is about me but largely due to the fact that I am such a great person who feels responsible all the time. I also felt guilty because I single-handedly made being cynical cool.

I mean, who can deny the large social impact I have had on Malaysia? Hordes of Malaysians suck my dick every day. I am the iconoclastic icon, the thought-leader, the forerunner, the Greatest Mind of the 21st Century.

For over 12 years, I made being cynical cool, when all this country ever needed was to appreciate what we already have and enjoy. And we all know, before I arrived 12 years ago, all Malaysians were very positive people cooing about our stupid buildings and stable economy. After me, everybody was like, "Meh" to everything.

I fear I have done all of you a great wrong.Things are not so bad here.

In my travels, I have met people whose job is to literally suck dicks every day. Fat dicks, thin dicks, long dicks, short dicks. Sweet dicks, sour dicks, sweet and sour dicks, salty dicks, spicy dicks, dicks with too much umami and cheese or whatever. Dicks dicks dicks. When you talk to these people, and you usually only hear "Mrrf Mrrf Glug glug glug" cause they're sucking dicks most of the time, you get the sense that it's not so bad here, in Malaysia, where you can make even better money sucking dicks. You only even have to suck only one dick a day instead of like, 300.

Things SEEM bad because we are a molly-coddled nation whose people are so used to having politicians do everything for us. We asked these politicians to take away anything and everything offensive from us, to uphold our laws and keep us safe, to tell us what is right and what is wrong. In return, we allow them to take our money. Most of our money.

And yet, even with all this, I sincerely do not believe that we can attribute all our successes or blame all our failures on politicians. This is lazy. This is avoiding responsibility. This is giving away too much power to politicians.

Politicians are the worst of us. They rise from a pool of the most desperate, deformed, mentally-handicapped and morally-bankrupt. And yet we expect them to do anything?

I believe that all of our successes and failures are our own. Datuk Nicol David became a dominant force in world squash not because of politicians, but in spite of them. Datuk Lat became an institution not because he had to kowtow to politicians - it was the other way around. He became such an institution that no one dared to mess with him. Name one single politician who can fight Malaysia's most talented people.

Blaming others simply give up power over ourselves to idiots. We all have more control over ourselves and our environment than we dare to admit. Because admitting it is accepting responsibility and our greatest sin is refusing to be accountable.

And what is so dangerous to own up to everything you've done - both good and bad?

So that others would not hate us? So that others would love us? Weak. Pathetic.

And so I find myself agreeing with these Malaysians who see more than I have. I have not set foot outside of South East Asia nor do I desire to do so. I'm okay with Malaysia and the occasional trip to Thailand to rejuvenate my flagging spirits.

I think they have a point. We are being too negative. Not to say that we should start being delusional or let our guard down, especially with politicians. I'm just saying, enough with the negativity. I'm tired. Just relax.

Otherwise, there is only one way this will play out. Come 2018, we might have blood on the streets, instigated by politicians who fight for the power to decide everything for us. I hope I'm wrong, but you see, I'm always right.