cakap cakap...Life at 69 going into 70.

Sometimes I do stop to think if what I do here, is an exercise in futility. If what we bloggers and those who "work" the social media beat ...... Arun Paul, Sopian Ahmad, Fauzi Rahman, Pak Arshad Raji Raji, Antares, Zul Sulong, Haris Ibrahim, Duke Cheng, Loke Sardon, Pak Idrus, Art Harun, Din Merican, Mariam Mokhtar, donplaypuks, Kadir Jasin,...even Che Det...and many others......if the time we spend tripping the light fantastic on our keyboard and seeking "ilham" on what to write, how to write and if we should write on this or on that....if all this that we do, does make a difference to what passes for governance in Bolehland.

There are moments of self doubt and wasangka when I retreat into my own world to argue with I, me and myself, as to the relevance of what we bloggers do. And these are not fleeting thoughts. Self doubt is the bane of those of us who writes because we must. The bane of those who must write what is in their hearts because if they do not, these thoughts keeps playing within our heads and will make us eventually mad! These thoughts must have release...and so I write....but that is my problem. Yours is to decide what you will read. 

It is 5.53 PM on a cold, dark Winter Sunday evening. I am in my 3S - Sarong, Singlet and Slipper....at my desk...writing.

My thoughts travels back to the time in Bangsar Permai in Jalan Tandok, Bangsar...... when there was another way to live my life. We were together with our two children...and my wife was well then. Dementia was still not even a dot on the horizon. 

   

But what I remembered most about those times was the feeling that it was transitory. Bangsar has been home when we are in Malaysia but I had a feeling that I no longer wanted to live in Malaysia any more and I was waiting to leave....anywhere else but Malaysia because everything around me was stifling.

I knew that if I wanted to continue to live in Malaysia, the getting of money would be my main preoccupation in life ....not the enjoying of life. More worrying, I have begun to doubt my ability to want to continue that kind of life for what ever years that were still left for me to live.   

What was getting to me was the costs of living life in KL. This was around 1999...just towards the end of the Millennium. The place we were living in then was RM1500 a month - with a car and everything else - I needed at least $3000 a month to cover my basic expenses. To be comfortable I had to clear RM$5000 a month...and I started to question my ability to do so given that I was close to 60.

I had come back to KL a few years back at a time when I believe that Abang Lah would be appointed DPM and from there become PM within a number of years. Now he was already PM and yet I saw that with the pressure upon him from Mahathir, he would most probably step down soon. And in the years that Abang Lah was PM, nothing much has changed in the manner Umno and its leaders conducted themselves ...Abang Lah included. So I sent my wife and son back to Adelaide and planned to follow them within a year. And that was what happened. 

I now feel settled in Melbourne. All that we need we have and some of our wants are being met. Suffice to tell you that our wants are few. 

The most welcoming thing about being in Australia is that we live as we want in the manner that we chose. Yesterday as I sat listening to the news, one news item made me smile. It  was about a company that chooses to not have a person's name, gender or age put down by any job seeker when applying for a position within that company. This is so that all job applicants would be judged on their merits. Cakap serupa bilkin.

I feel that we have reached a plateau in our life - not a plateau where things level off and we just wait for that carriage that will take us to the great big hunting ground in the sky....no Sir! I feel that we have reached a level of life that we are happy with. And each day lived can only be better because there are no expectations and thus no disappointments....and most comfortable of all is that I get to spend every day of the rest of my life with my wife...and I hope for her, the same is in her thoughts.

Life is good.