As the days go by you find yourself caring less about others. Emotion is a tool, for although it may manifest itself in the utmost innocent forms of selfishness, it is also a hand of kindness. The problem with growing up is that logic takes over. And that is why children are always the extremes, while adults somewhere in between.
I used to strive to remove myself from meat because I cared about the animals. Every year I’d attempt a month-long vegan spree, and I will tell you; it was hard. I love the taste of meat, the chewing, the juices, the stomach-contenting space it managed to fill. I did it not because of lent, or due to tradition, or to profess and show my faith in some God. I did it because I cared. I wanted to at least, at the very least, repent somehow. The poor animals.
And yet I was born an omnivore. It is in my very existence, if it is to be sustained, to cause suffering to others. Be it pollution, thriving in capitalism over the poverty-stricken, to cause envy, disgust, hatred, annoyance, condescension in friends and family.
But that conscience is emotion in play. And logic dictates that I should not care if it doesn’t affect me within my own universe. To care for only those that actually mean something to you, or may be of use to you, is not emotion, but logic playing its card.
Why should I care?
——————
To be fair I miss home.
I miss the people, the weather, the food and the family. But if you were to drag me back to Malaysia for that reason right now, I’d resist, because ego, self-interest(read above), and ambition demands that I grab this chance of studying overseas and make the best of it.
And yet I miss home.
There is so little back home, and yet, so much more within itself.
I would like to talk about why I decided to find a job back in Malaysia and not entertain any thoughts of working overseas. Let us put aside the following un-denied factors:
i) I want to take care of the family/be with it.
ii) The UK’s legal job market is extremely difficult to penetrate, and I’d rise faster back home.
iii) Status and luxury is relative anyway. Whatever benefits the pound may have over the ringgit is only enjoyed if I were to walk out of Britain.
Familiarity is the keyword in the first paragraph of this self explanation. There is novel pleasure in snow, cold weather, foreign accents, red-bricked buildings and facebook photos, yet that pleasure is novel. It lasts, how long, I do not know. While missing home I am still on a daily basis slightly tinged on the inside with excitement whenever I step out of my room. And yet, already I feel familiar with my surroundings. A white person is not odd to me, and something inside me ticks instead when I see an Asian. My person is adapting, and the novelty is dying. But this familiarity is not like the one at home. It is one born out of consistency, not memory and heart. And that is what familiarity in Malaysia means for me.
I love the food, the people (accepting all their adversity in the basket), and the culture and mentality that Malaysia has to offer me. I know now that my urge to quickly leave was born out of discontent with whatever I had at that that point in time, and the reasons for that discontent came within my own sphere, not that of the home I came from. My circumstance is a reflection of what I make from within my character, and that is not something a different environment could change.
While that may be the end of familiarity in our reflection today, it leaves a child as it fades away while our discussion goes on.
This is a child born of familiarity. It is so ambiguous and conceptual that I could not discern what exactly it is. I cannot think of a name for it. But let us call it, for semantic purposes, the marriage of Hope and Vested Interest, two cores that I am certain is true for me.
I consider myself an anarchist, and disagree with the concept of nationality, separate governments eyeing over their own herd with a jealous eye, and the distinction of bond between men based on an invisible line. And yet now I feel a love for Malaysia, in the form of the two cores mentioned above. I find it hard to explain why I feel this way, but here is an attempt:
Malaysia is changing. It may not be currently for the better, but whatever is happening, it is definitely so. I believe we are on the verge of a revolution of thought. Even if this progress may be lightyears behind what the West has already achieved decades ago and merely relatively progressive to whatever we have had before, it is progress nonetheless. We are taking rights more seriously, involving ourselves in the politics of the country and taking a hand in its direction, demanding our share of the decision making. It is a revolution. The moment the opposition reaches Putrajaya, Malaysia will change forever.
I say this not because I believe whole-heartedly in Anwar Ibrahim’s coalition for power corrupts, and there is only one mask that all politicians wear; the mask of circumstance. I say it because it would be the climactic moment in which the people have finally set themselves free of the thatched hut of security. Check and balance. No one would be safe, but everyone would be free. I do not know when exactly this will happen, but I want to be a part of it. I cannot explain why, for the world is so large and life so short, and there is so much adventure to be had in the endless sea.
But that romanticism lures me back home.