Of about 75 posts since January, traffic seemed to knot around these 13. The first one, though, is the main product I’m trying to sell; what I think you ought to take home if otherwise I’ve failed to amuse...
(Because kindness at love, is work)
(Because kindness at work, is love)
…because FAITHfulness in both love and work is the Best of Luck.
At the end of the day, the only gain is a life well spent. And the best to spend life is in good company. And the best of company are those who leave us with these two things:
Because, if everything else is at loss, then come what may.
Look, to be absolutely fair, paying Rp18’000 for a not-so-good cup of macchiato is total rip off. I could’ve gotten something way better in Aceh at Rp2000 (that’s LESS that one Saudi Riyal), with some not-so-legal smokes on the side for spice instead of the stale thumbnail-sized cookie.
(Of course, going to Aceh from Jakarta would cost about Rp 2 MILLION (that’s a LOT more than 1 Saudi Riyal)– but…another story.)
Anyway, you know what, with (overpriced) things, it’s the stories around them that matters more than the thing:
…to be Chinese in Glodok, on May 1998?
…to be Black in the US South and South Africa in 1960s?
…to be Tutsi/Hutu in Rwanda?
…to be Native Indian in 17th century United States?
…to be Protestant in England in the 16th century?
…to be Jewish in 1940s in Germany?
…to be Kurdish in Iraq, in 1980s?
…to know that my ignorance actually is my luck?
…to realize that, maybe, we’re all descendants of survivors?
I lied. Nothing is for free, even at work. Especially at non-profit work.
The down-payment for social reform is usually based on something tangible. Something real. As real as blood and tears.
The bigger the effort to stick through, is the more concrete a reward is needed, right?
It’s just that, after a while of getting cash, certificates and cups, compensation seem to take more abstract forms. Immaterial. Transcendental. Personalized.
Hence, the tendency to indulge in stories.
Look here, mate, for thirteen years, the Quran was revealed in the ancient form of “chicken soup”. The general theme in Makkiyyah surahs held stories about previous prophets, job descriptions, and their hardships and rewards. Nearly all the chapters in the Old Testament and Bhagavad Gita are like that.
That is why, in all of their beginnings, Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha, King and Mandela indulged in a certain number of years on meditative seclusion. To listen to stories that...
All I’m saying is that, great men, leaders, prophets, oracles, whatever…merely were humans who listened to enough stories from the past.
Enough stories to retell a better version of the future.
Now, isn’t that something?
I can only promise you one thing, that this is as happy an ending as you want it.
Let’s start with the fact that they were siblings: Murad, Solomon and Ishmael. Let’s have it clear that they were designed to be guardians for each other’s wellbeing, or each other’s living nightmare.
Near the start of a certain pilgrimage season, Murad asked for Ishmael’s brotherly help on a business he was running. Ishmael, the kindly small-time clerk in some obscure bank, quietly sold his house, quit his job and moved his young family to Jeddah to concentrate in helping Murad.
“He is my brother;” thought Ishamel, “I won’t rest if he’s in trouble, and he wouldn’t abandon his own brother, would he?”
The first to offer kindness are usually the first to get screwed over. After that season, Murad said: “Don’t you have a job? Why are you still in my office?”
“I thought this was a full time gig.”
And Murad shook his head impatiently, “Sorry, that wasn’t the deal. Here’s your pay for the season, now leave.”
***
I know, I know, I promised you a happy ending.
Solomon, the middle brother, took pity on Ishmael’s plight and promised to help. Without telling anyone, Solomon borrowed a hefty amount of money to reinstate Ishamel’s family in a house, arm them with a car and start an office that Ishmael can go to everyday.
Next, he borrowed more money to show that his business with Ishmael was doing excellently well.
At some point, there was more money borrowed than the means to pay it back. And the facade took less than a decade to fall apart: Solomon sent to jail, Ishmael died of heartbreak, and Murad demented under the weight of his prestigious positions and wealth.
***
I promised you a happy ending, didn’t I?
For one, both Solomon and Ishmael slept and died with clear conscience. They can look back and say, “I did my damndest even when I couldn’t afford it.”
Evidence of sacrificial acts of kindness can be seen in fruits of that passion. Having been through poverty, all of Solomon and Ishmael’s children came out self-sufficiently successful. Solomon’s children were educated under prestigious scholarships. Ishmael’s children, though as sweet and mild as their father was, command a silent kind of strength that burying a parent at fifteen years old would bring.
All of Solomon and Ishmael’s children futures seem bright and promising.
Murad’s children? Unbeknownst even to themselves, they’re self-dedicated to different kinds of poverty: seclusion, distrust, and ire.
Whether or not they realized it, they grew up nourished with money from the blood & tears of others. Whether they realize it or not, they don’t sleep well at night; bearing the sense of guilt and moral debt that are beyond their means to return.
Isn’t that a happy ending of some sort?
Be like salt.
Salt is reliable, readily available and within everyone’s reach.
Whether or not we believe, whether we know or not how it came to exist, salt will be salt. Whether plentiful or scarce, whether added into a dish, or thrown over one’s shoulder, it does the same job. Whether it is called, salt, garam, ملح or NaCl, it works & reacts the same way to its surrounding: making it salty.
Specialists and intellectuals and artists may argue, but the underline is the same: salt is indispensable and for only salt can do the job.
Be like salt.
Do your job whenever it is needed. Do your job whatever is the pay. Be reliable at your job, no matter how varied your surrounding might be.
Be good at just one thing, no matter how underrated. Don’t worry about other people’s tastes. Don’t worry about appearances. Preserve your rasa; your essence of being.
Because with practice & time you’ll be really good at it. And when you get really, really good at it, it’ll turn into a killer marketing by itself: The sublime assumption only you can do the job as well as you do.
Like salt.
[Don't miss Part I. – (H)ning]
11. Jamie Lee Curtis vs Tia Carrere (True Lies, 1994)
Slap fight in an out-of-control limo. Another Arnie flick.
12. Charlize Theron vs Teri Hatcher (2 Days in the Valley, 1996)
NEVER provoke a woman wearing a skin-tight white spandex.
13. Ziyi Zhang vs Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, 2000)
Fast and furious display of youthful, experienced, and skillful assault with deadly intent. All this and not a single naked skin is shown.
14. Rachel Weisz vs Patricia Velasquez (The Mummy Returns, 2001)
Academics duking it out with the fate of the world at stake. Who would’ve thought?
15. Denise Richards vs Aunjanue Ellis (Undercover Brother, 2002)
Tough hombres stopped their barroom brawl to watch these fine ladies tearing each other apart. Classic!
16. Rosamund Pike vs Halle Berry (Die Another Day, 2002)
Chicks trying to skewer each other (I didn’t mean that in a sexual way). Naturally, it’s another James Bond flick. Last word: “I broke her heart.” Ouch!
17. Cameron Diaz vs Demi Moore (Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, 2003)
Blonde vs brunette. To the death. You KNOW you’ve had dreams about this!
18. Uma Thurman vs Vivica A. Fox, Uma Thurman vs Chiaki Kuriyama, Uma Thurman vs Lucy Liu, and Uma Thurman vs Daryl Hannah (Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2, 2003-2004) (Oh, just dig it up yourself! – H)
Quentin Tarantino sure loves catfights. All four exquisitely brutal rumble in one movie! (albeit split into 2 parts)
19. Holly Valance and Sarah Carter (DOA: Dead Or Alive, 2006)
Fighting. Bare-knuckled. In the rain. In bikinis. ‘Nuff said!
20. Sienna Miller vs Rachel Nichols (G.I. Joe, 2009)
Two leather-clad women duking it out in a military bunker. Sure, it’s a bit cartoon-ish, but so is the toy-based-movie
Honorable mentions: Sigourney Weaver vs the Alien Queen (Aliens, 1984). She didn’t make the cut because her opponent is, well, not exactly human.
Best quote: “Bitch, you don’t have a future” (Uma Thurman in Kill Bill Vol.2, 2004) That’s harsh!
Footnotes:
I’m so glad I didn’t write the article below; otherwise I would’ve sounded too conceited even for my taste.
If only we could see everything that we do as an act of service to others, and ultimately to the Greater Goodness, wouldn’t it make grievances more brief? And our jobs easier? And our joys more precious?
Learn to serve.
Work to serve.
Love to serve.
Then stick to it: Pledge loyalty to whom/what you serve.
Who’s paying?
Yeah, I know that this sounds like impossible bull because we feel that we are rarely acknowledged for our services. Then again, maybe the amount of thanks receive equals the amount that we give.
Have you thanked your teeth for not falling out overnight? Have you thanked the hands that sewed your clothes? Have you thanked the people who paved the roads and invented matchboxes and laptops?
Maybe we owe the world MORE than it owes us, and we just haven’t caught up with the tab.
Because the planets and the universe do not run on a straight forward line. It’s circular. So it will take its time to complete its cycle. The more valuable the service, is the longer the cycle, and the greater is the satisfaction.
The strength of faith can be measured when a body is burned, buried and definitely dead.
After the burning at the stake, they gathered Joan of Arc’s remains for burial, and found that her heart – scorched as it was – in tact.
After his public self-immolation, they cremated the Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức’s remains, and found his heart fire-proof. That heart is still in display.
It is said that Muslim who pass away with al-Qur’an memorized by heart (oh that organ again), their remains will be protected from decay.
Remember what I said about our bodies bearing witness to our lives? That our looks betray our thoughts and feelings?
Maybe that’s why the Lord is the Only One with the right to judge our hearts. That you can only guess what hides in a heart postmortem.
When what remains no longer doubts.
Someone once said that confusion brings out the extremes and - true to his name - Bang Muh is a hardcore Makkawi Mutawwa and a poster boy to the ideal Wahhabi.
He threatened his family with hell and set the lines between males and females. He wore his thobe three inches too short, threatened little unmutawwa children and carried arms for Taliban during the war with Russia.
A dude scarier than hell…until you hear him speak in rural Javanese.
When he spoke in Javanese (and you have to eavesdrop because it’s rare) he addressed he elders properly, agreed in sweet “inggih” instead of decisive “eyiwa”, and offered thanks instead of shoving it.
You see, in Javanese, his preschool lullabies were delivered. In Javanese, you’d hear his struggles for acceptance, and see his bruises from growing up amongst the hard rocks and Mutawwas of Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
As short as his thobes got, Bang Muh couldn’t be just a Mutawwa. He’s a story. And it’s the stories that he kept untold, in the language that he rarely whispered, that settled his definitions of home and identity: A brother. A son. A Saudi-Jawa.
Growing up in Jeddah during the 80s was like living inside a television. The shows that ran from 6-7 am, were anchored in your mother’s native tongue, hollering at you to hurry up and go to school.
School hours, from 7am to 2pm, were anchored by a selection of teachers, calling you stupid in three Arabic accents, taking turns with your schoolmates’ untied sneers.
[On the way home from school, you ask the driver to take the long way home, just so you can prolong the precious silence. Once in a while, your faithful driver complies. He’s heard. He understands.]
Growing up in Jeddah was great when you got out of the TV and watched it instead. In the afternoon, there is an hour of cartoons on TV. You’re given the break to be a child again; dreamy and certain for fact that Adnan and Lina misunderstand Absi, and the Bionic Six is your lost biological family, and that Captain John Silver is the hottest guy in the world.
When Maghreb prayers was announced from seven minarets in the neighborhood, you brace yourself for all the forces of hurt to amalgamate and gather on the homework table.
[Even now, all grown up and a lifetime away from Jeddah, worse than cartoon closing credits, hearing the call for Maghreb prayer retains its power to sink your heart.]
You hated homework. But school marks had the power in changing the world. You can make your father proud, your mother content, your school teachers and mates respectful. So, yes, you’ll ace all of the subjects as long that you believed everything on TV and that Nimnims are real.
Your father comes home from work and if he weren’t too tired to watch, you’ll anchor your own TV show. You’ll report how your day went, and reassure him about the clarity of your life’s purpose. And that he’s not wasting his money on your private education.
You won’t tell him though, that at bedtime you’ll gather your little brothers under the bed and calm them with soothing words, and wait for the raging storm in the living room to pass.
You won’t tell him though, that in Jeddah during the 80s, amidst the cultural disarray, broken accents and adult expectations, your life’s purpose was to protect your little brothers’ childhood from the kind that you’ve had: a premature bullshit.
مافي خط تـلفون أرضي
Remember a time when a paid-yet-silent phone line meant the untimely death of cyberlife?
Yeah, we still have that here. This is a village after all. We don’t have malls equipped with free-floating WiFi. We don’t have coffee or internet shops that are free of strategically located suspicious spots in its booths.
Forget the internet; rural electricity can’t even stand heavy rain. *drylaugh*
We speculated on reasons that might’ve caused this communication outage:
Since neither of those problems can be solved with a massage or a village Elder’s frown, we’ll have wait until things sort itself out.
Until then, I’ll be posting in brainburst mode: Wordy posts. No pictures. No hidden quotes. No Multimedia!
Because slow, mobile innernerding can barely hold a connection, much less bear the weight of my frustration research and decorated posts, see?
Don’t wince like that.
I’m the one who’s got to choose between traditional posts or contagious public internet booths.
[Hning’s Note: This guest post is by Iwan Amir – a guy friend who keeps his hair very, very long.]
Even from the earliest movies, women were not to be messed with.
They wield weapons as well as any man. Fight with the ferocity of a horde of Ewoks. And kick butt while looking oh so fine. They make you ask, “Why did those eighteen men attack her? Now they’re bloodied and broken.” The following list of my top 20 best catfight movie scenes, which is sorted in CHRONOLOGICAL order so we can see how some things remain the same.
Note: only one-on-one fights qualify.
1. Marlene Dietrich vs Una Merkel (Destry Rides Again, 1939)
Yer basic clawing, hair-pulling and clothes ripping. Considered revolutionary at the time. Uh-huh.
2. Paulette Goddard vs Rosalind Russell (The Women, 1939)
These ladies presented us with a no holds barred catfight-o-rama at an elegant ball decades before Trish Stratus trashed Melina on the WWF ring.
3. Martine Beswick vs Aliza Gur (From Russia With Love, 1963)
Fighting over a man: Bond. James Bond. And they call this Gypsy culture (I’d sue if I were them).
4. Haji vs Lori Williams (Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill, 1965)
Russ Meyer's finest scene. I still can’t believe that they did it without being obstructed by those huge breasts.
5. Raquel Welch vs Martine Beswick (One Million Years BC, 1966)
Well-groomed cavegirls fighting without breaking a nail. Raquel is da bomb!
Raquel Welch - Prehistoric Cat Fight by soulpatrol
6. Brigitte Bardot vs Claudia Cardinale (The Legend of Frenchie King, 1971)
Brawl between two European goddesses in a very American Western setting.
Catfight "Legend of Frenchie King" by goodcatfights
7. Pam Grier vs Jeannie Epper (Foxy Brown, 1974)
Who can resist a lesbian bar fight? Pam showed da sistas who’s da ma’am.
8. Michiko Nishiwaki vs Sibelle Hu (My Lucky Stars, 1985)
My absolute favorite. A Hong Kong cult movie classic where you’ll be stunned before the first punch is even thrown in this scene, and I’m NOT talking about the ‘80s hair-do. I love this fight not because of the realism, the gore, the special effects, the skin, or other philosophical meanderings, none of these are in the scene. I love it because despite the serious atmosphere of the scene, it was downright unintentionally (is it?) hilarious! You’ll know what I’m talking about when you watch the scene.
It’s dubbed in English, unfortunately. Just leave your brains behind and let your jaw drop.
9. Moon Lee vs Yukari Oshima (Iron Angels, 1987)
Brutal, bloody, and jawdroppingly awesome. Lee sez: "I am just a poor defenseless woman.” Yeah, right.
10. Sharon Stone vs Rachel Ticotin (Total Recall, 1990)
Too bad Arnie interfered. Now THAT is what I call a third-party-driven divorce.
End of Part I.
[Footnote: Part II will bring Teri Hatcher, Rachel Weisz, Hale Berry into the ring…]
Based on the assumption that
I disabled commenting under my posts.
But when I did that, some folks were brutally unhappy.
So what says the rest of you, Readers?
PS. See? Told ya I listen.
How did the misconception that Western medicine is the ONLY correct form of healing become so popular ?
Why is it considered stupid if a patient prefers meditation instead of surgery?
Why do people think it is better to opt for the most expensive, extensive and intrusive form of treatment?
I don’t think that Western medicine is defunct. I just don’t agree with doctors who think that they’re the only ones with the right answers.
Because, actually, doctors don’t have all the answers. No one does. Not a single method or school is singularly effective in fixing anything in the human body.
Remember Abraham’s conversation with the Lord?
“Lord, where does illness come from?”
He said, “From Me.”
“And where does wellness come from?”
“Yeah, I send that too.”
Abe was confused. “Then why do we seek health from doctors and shamans and astrologers?”
The Lord replied, “Because, like all things worldly, health needs vessels.”
After the revelation of the first 40 verses of the Bovine, the Prophet looked up Gabriel, the delivery angel, with dismay.
“Are you sure this is what He said, that whatever I do and say man is and will remain obtuse? That man’s heart is as hard and harder than stone?”
The archangel grinned and shrugged his shoulders, making his vast wings glimmer and jingle. Majestic, but eerily funny. “That’s what we – all the angels and demons – have said to Him from the first day man was created. And ye know how that went, don’t ye?”
With a
The archangel made his funny shrug again, “That’s what the other prophets and lesser-prophets before ye have said too. And ye know how that went, don’t ye?”
Oh, yes, he did. Noah with the deluge. Moses with a floating pharaoh. Lot with an upside-down town. Jesus with the cross.
And man still insisted on arrogant stupidity.
“So, basically the idea of reforming man is futile?” asked Muhammad again.
But the archangel was no longer at his side. Like all revelations, the truest must come in solitude.
Hence, in the lonely silence, the dejected man heard, “Ye’re only there to offer choices: perfecting what’s already right, and make better what’s helpless.”
(إنما بعثت لأتمم مكارم الأخلاق)Have you seen the Unborn? No?
Yeah, don’t bother.
The demon in the Unborn movie is called a Dybbuk – originating from Jewish folklore with (behavioral) characteristics that remind us too much of changelings: evil spirits that possess and take over people’s bodies.
In the movie, when dybbuk possessed, it twisted and bent its host to fit its own liking.
So far, all this made perfect, uninspiring sense. So imagine my horror when I saw that the American dybbuk’s idea of modifying its host is to make it look and walk like – watch this – the Javanese demon Banaspati.
The Banaspati, by the way, behaves and looks a lot like the Japanese demon Tenjōkudari
Banaspatis and Tenjōkudaris do not possess. They just haunt abandoned houses and spook unwanted visitors. Being confused with the Dybbuk would’ve insulted all three.
It’s awful. I know.
Hollywood has no right to abuse cultural and demonic facts like they do.
Especially in a movie as badly written as the Unborn.
•۞•
There are a lot of stories about fairies and demons that are cross culturally similar.
The elders in my Javanese village recall witnessing a demon by the name Tundun Belis which looks like a carriage without a coachman, picks up trash and disease from villages near their dwellings, and dispose of them in the ocean.
In Europeah culture, Death is sometimes illustrated traveling in a horseless carriage.
In Japanese culture, there’s the Wanyūdō.
And don’t get me started on the internationally famed dragons, vampires, body snatchers and ladies of the lake. Almost every culture in the world has them, they do the same job/spooks, but hold different names.
•۞•
So here’s my question.
•۞•
I’m surprised that you’ve read this far. I know this isn’t a generic Hning kinda thing to post. I just had to get it out there.
That the Unborn was a terrible movie.
Wishing you a good Good Friday.
(PS. I don’t think that demonic possessions are worse than – say falling under the possession a Nintendo DS and other fascinating things like that. A dybbuk might possess you to clean the house and that would be a good thing, right? Anyway…)
(PPS. If someone asked, this is how I critically came to believe in an Ultimate God. I live in a village with too many overly-expressive Banaspatis in them, man.)
The flop of an oxygen mask on my face interrupted my otherwise deep and much needed slumber. Cabin pressure was dropping. It dawned on me sleepily, this trip was going to end in midair.
The captain’s words confirmed our given situation. His words betrayed his emotions: “Thank you for flying with us until the very, very end. Please hold hands and enjoy your final moments.”
The years spent in recluse was not going to make me look wussy now. Yet there was this one, last thing I needed to do before completely surrendering to the inevitable.
I took my chances when the cabin lights short-circuited. I unlatched my seatbelt, and started getting off my chair.
Suddenly I heard an authoritative scream – or was it a command? I don’t know, it gets hard to know linguistic differences when you hear an engine explode somewhere.
A flight attendant was gesturing and ordering me to get back to my chair and buckle up. I dodged, and right before he could get his hands on me, a luggage compartment opened on top of his head, ending his pursuit.
I wanted to check if he was alright, but urgency forced me to economize.
The plane swung, I danced with gravity to reach the lavatory door, lock myself in there, drop my pants and sat on the thing.
“I only ask for two minutes, Lord,” I silently prayed. “Hold her steady for two minutes only. That’s all it takes for me to pee.”
And the plane steadied. She steadied long enough for me to flush and wash my hands. She steadied long enough until I got back to my row, sit back in my chair and buckled-up like a good girl should.
As the plane exploded midair, like an amateur firework, I smiled: Whatever’s left of my remains, it wasn’t going to smell like a Scottish toilet.
Pexel 1. Readers will read. Regardless to format or income or legality. 2. Something to remember: The Prophet was illit...
