Monday, August 31, 2009

Merdeka, a mere rhetoric?

Such A Beautiful Day
So the blog has been revived with planning for new form of contents in the future. It has taken up in several forms previously. Possibly it could change again in the future. For a start, I'd like to write down an introductory.

Today, Malaysia celebrated its 52nd anniversary of independence. If it's translated to the age of a human being, it reflects a level of maturity that mature enough to decide a life on its own, free of external influence and intervention - of a person who is wise enough to decide what's good for him/herself.

I'm neither going to talk about the issues or concept of independece nor am I going to talk about the current political scenario in this country. I am a citizen enchanted by the beauty from its surface, still incapable of reaching the bottom, leave alone to understand it.

I want to talk about my independence.

Tomorrow I'll be reporting to my new workplace. I'll be serving to my government (yep, it's my government as it is elected democratically by a majority), by offering my professional service as an architect. I'll start from the grade J41 - with a standard scale of pay much lower from what I used to get when I was in private practice. I'm not complaining (yet, for the time being) and somehow deep inside I felt like somehow I've been liberalised, from the world of dirty capitalism (a word cliche on its own).

Years of practising in private firms taught me enough lesson on many things. The biggest lesson is, money will never be enough. It depends primarily on how much do you want to part with at the end of the day, then everything will follow suit. Clocking long hours in the office before putting yourself in a position filthier than the creatures roaming the sewer just to please your immediate superior or clients are such examples of the new modern form of extreme corporate slavery.

Yes, people say working hard always reward you with fruitful success. To me, in architecture the term working hard does not metaphorically transform to a corporate ladder but to a high output production machinery instead. The term work smart in other hand is just a total bullshit. Working smart here in actual translates to how sneaky are you in getting all means available to get things done, either it's right or wrong.

I was naive as a fresh graduate, believing I could face the hurdles in becoming a successful architect. Little that I know what the hurdles are or how high I'd have to jump over it. After few ups and more downs, it strengthens my belief that a certain amount of achievements are cemented on a strong base of great sacrifices. To be a great architect, I'd have to give up my life - the life that I've modelled as how I want it to be. I have my priority.

Probably, I can't be great. I don't want to be a failure as well. Now I want to head towards a direction I'm capable of scaling it. As Malaysians proudly celebrates Malaysia's glorious 52nd anniversary of independence with a fair amount of achievements (though still with lots of works), so am I charting my own course, hopefully when I reach my 52nd years on mother earth I have the achievements for my family to be proud of or the least to my own satisfaction when I finally close my eyes and rest the case.

Happy Merdeka day to all Malaysians and to myself. And me taking up photography as my new hobby, probably it's my form of liberalisation (or is just a mere rethoric?).

Just wait for the exciting future contents.