Wednesday ramblings....

Two of the greatest connectors of life has always been fellowship and friendship. The two most used words but seldom deciphered to their true context. Here is my simple take on the two words – the connecting factor to these two words is the word – FOOD! My explanation is simply that if there is good food on the table be it durians, sambal ikan bilis, Nyonya pong teh, assam pedas, tom yum, BBQ ribs, braised chicken or whatever goodies, fellowship & friendship will ensued/come through easily. Of course, you must throw in the right people and the right purposes into the mix bowl or else it is going to be the longest night of your life!

Interestingly that over the years, I have found that great people are the ones that would make the conversation in a meeting or a party a lively discussion or a lively riot. Add up with people of the same like-mindedness, the party or the discussion will turned into a riot very quickly; a good riot though and sometimes becomes the envy of the guys at the next table or even of the party.

I guess, over the years I am blessed with great friends with superb humour and a barrel of laughs. Sure, we all ain’t some nut cases from Tanjung Rambutan mental institution or Hospital Bahagia but we are all pretty nice gentlemen, blokes and women, I must say. I guess, the chemistry when in a group of happy, lively and ever humorous group, you tend to be lifted up in spirits and forget the axe thrown at you at work earlier or some bloody assassination plot to blow up your piss pot! Yeah, I mean, it is such an uplifting feeling just to be able to share a laugh or two and even be part of the joke at times as it lightens the heart and sure as hell give better flow of your blood to reach those vital places of interest in your body. It is no wonder that “happy “ people tend to outlive the grumpier ones! I know, I know, I have no statistics to back this up but I do believe that people on prune juice diet will definitely konked off earlier than the laughing ones! 

Somehow, reading too much of the Obituary Section of the daily papers had somehow influenced my view that grumpier one definitely will appear at that section faster than they can say " Not me! ". By the way, I love the Obituary Section as it gives me the opportunity to read the lineage of that person and their pictures are always smiling faces which is so much lovelier, actually. I envisioned that the smiling faces are actually the "screensaver" of the people. Who wants a grumpy picture in the Obituary Section, right? 

I have had my share of being with seriously “dead” serious group of people( believe me, they are as good as dead! ) and some hilariously riot bunch of humorous old blokes and let’s just say that I KNOW where I want to be! So, I just wanna say thank you to all the people that had gone through my life , touched me in more ways than I’ll ever know and even bringing so much brighter changes in my life. I may not be the best of friends but I do hope in my small little way, I’ve been a friend to each and every one of you. My utmost sincere apologies if I hadn’t been a good one. 

One of the things I love to do in the office is to groan out that so and so had died after flipping the Obituary Section of the papers. BTW, it is not morbid to read the Obituary Section of the papers. It is perfectly okay, people! We will all die one day and there is absolutely no need to get overly sensitive over this matter! So, one day, one of the clerks asked me if I knew the person in the papers. I would always have my fun by telling her - "Nope! But she /he is dead , isn't it?" Most of the time, her face would lit up and more often than not, I would get a gentle slap or even the longest Chinese " Choi!Choi!Choi! exclamation!  It sure brightens up her days and mine too! It is good to have humour and be joyful and stop being a prude!

Yunno, life is really funny. You can find out about this easily when you sit at a funeral sit in. No one in their bloody sane mind is gonna tell you the horrific facts of this person or that person that is laying down there “in their best” in the casket! Everyone will try to be as polite as possible but amidst the politeness, you can actually hear the truthful facts about the one lying in the casket by people whom regarded that person as friend/family. I guess, in many ways, I have had been in such situations and I would like to hear the truth of that someone rather than the “re-constructed“ truth of that person. Don’t you agree? Sometimes, it is just polite to say something nice to the dead and it makes me think, actually. My questions is simply – why can’t we say nice things to that person while he/she is alive and before that person changed their address permanently as they lay in their 6’x4’ plot? Hmmmnnnnn….interesting.

Anyway, it is always so much nicer being around sincere friends and nice folks AND believe me, there are plenty of such people around once you get to know them. It is because they have been hurt, used and twisted around that people start to close up and get nasty. I believe that somehow there is no rotter to the core person as one starts their life. Bad experiences and bad peoples made that turnabout of events and lives. So, let’s get rid of all these goons and start with good people again, shall we? Yeah, give it a try today and see if it works. Sometimes, we are that stumbling block itself and so, we, ourselves, would have to make a change before others do that. I guess, with that happening, the place we lived in would be so much nicer. Don’t you think so? I think, it would be good indeed…….