Freedom In A Moment
Do we have freedom and rights over our own life? I think deep inside us, we all don’t really bother…
Total freedom, that’s wishful thinking…
But what about the master psychologist Victor Franckl who wrote:
“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
“to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances”, is that romanticism? Or perhaps existentially, we sense that we really did choose and decide. Maybe that’s why we have pretty limited built-in RAM, so that at any given moment, we may not be able to traverse the course of event infinitely, and therefore, creating the awareness that we are really the master of our own destiny. The question is, should we retrace memories and events this way? Is the river of time meant to be sailed-through so as to discover the butterfly effect of our little sneezing? I propose butterfly effect is as much a myth as total freedom.
We have a moment, at any given moment, and that moment is as much ours as it is a shared moment with the billions of human species (and animals?), it is in that moment we decide, whether to starve ourself to give the one piece of bread to a fellow human being more needy than us – a decision to affect oneself morally and physically.
On the other hand, carpe diem…eat and drink and find satisfaction in what you do…
I wrote a poem almost a year ago…it’s scary how the same theme comes back to haunt me at exactly a year after that…
We lived tru this dark terrifying Advent nights
Feasting on fear rained from the stormy clouds above;
’twas night for sure, but no stars in-sight,
cold from the rain, but no warmth from the stove.
We clutched a piece of freedom,
this little bread no one can steal;
No emperors nor princes nor rust nor worms,
Can take away our human will
to choose, in spite of the starless nights
and the cold cold rain;
The will to choose to do what is right,
and to choose what is right despite our pains.
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I am a true-blood Penang "kia" (son of Penang) who love everything about my beautiful home-state, well, almost everything. :)
Formerly I served as the Special Assistant to the Penang State Executive Councillor (State-level ministerial post) in charge of Youth and Sports. I am now pursuing an MA in Philosophy at a local university.
I am also the Executive Secretary of the Network of Social Democracy in Asia (www.socdem.asia) and sit on the committee of the State-sponsored Good Governance and Gender Equality Society (3Gs). Since 2007, I also served in various capacities in the office of the Hon' Madam Chong Eng, a leading Malaysian woman Parliamentarian.
Politically, I had the privilege to help manage four successful political campaigns since 2007 and was involved in planning, campaigning and monitoring of eight state and federal level elections in Malaysia.
I am engaged with the love of my life, Jorin. Both of us worship at the Bukit Mertajam Gospel Centre.
