Hiatus

Dear Avid and Beloved readers,

I will no longer publish anything to this blog although i love to publish everything of my insight.. over here...

if ever you wanted to (if and only if)... read any of my humble writings.. just look for me in the facebook.. :)

Take care..

Of Fasting

Got this from an email:

A Dialogue happened:

“You neither eat nor drink the whole day?” Tan asked me.

“Yes. The whole day. But not at night. Only from dawn to sunset”, I replied.

“How can you survive? Can you survive?”, Tan asked again.

I smiled.

“Well, it’s not just you. Even Habib Bourguiba, the late President of Tunisia who was also a ‘Muslim’, convinced that fasting is against productivity. You know the history?”, I took my turn asking Tan my question.

“How should I know? Tell me!”, he said.

In 1961, Habib Bourguiba made a controversial statement claiming that fasting should not be observed for it reduces productivity. He then appeared on television with his cabinet, eating and drinking during Ramadhan.

“Why so harsh?”, Tan was shocked.

“I don’t know. Was it out of ignorance or arrogance? Perhaps a combination of both”, I replied.

Even though fasting is there in the name of Lent among Christians, it is always the Muslim’s version that cultivates questions and debates.

In order to understand about the real meaning of fasting, one should agree that it has something to do with our own paradigm and world view. The way we view things; like I always quote, “what you see is what you get”.

VIEWING FASTING IN MANY WAYS

If you see fasting as a way for better diet, you will benefit that from fasting. But fasting will only be a mechanism of improving your diet.

If you see fasting as a way to save your daily expense by breaking your fast daily in the mosque, then you will be able to achieve that. But that’s it. No more than that.

If you see fasting as a way for you to gain reward or ‘pahala’ from Him, then it is a good motive and sound intention. But reward and pahala is something that you can hardly measure in this physical and worldly life. You don’t see someone obese out of pahala. It is something else!

And strangely, the last 10 days of Ramadhan are the most rewarded and full of pahala, but then you’ll see the mosques are empty.

So, what Ramadhan and fasting are all about?

If you see fasting as abstaining one from eating, drinking, having sexual intercourse during the daytime, and reducing the wrongdoings of backbiting what so ever… that is the definition of fasting. But it only explains the mechanism of fasting as ritual.

Let us take a look at the origin of Muslims’s version of fasting. Al-Quran says:

“O you who believe! Observing As-Saum (the fasting) is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, that you may become the people with the quality of Taqwa” (Al-Baqarah 2: 183)

Fasting is a mechanism to achieve Taqwa. You abstain yourself from eating and drinking, in order to achieve Taqwa. How is that?

TAQWA

Taqwa can be defined in many ways. But the conversation between Ubay bin Kaab and Umar al-Khattab was a good summary about the essence of Taqwa. Once, Umar asked Ubay what he knows about Taqwa. Ubay replied by asking him, “Have you walked through thorny path?”

Umar answered, “Yes, indeed”

Ubay then asked him, “What did you do?”

Umar replied, “I tucked up (my garment) and did my best (to avoid thorns)”

Thereupon Ubay said, “That is Taqwa!”

Our life is a journey. Like someone who is driving from a place to another. Throughout the journey, he will meet many road signs that might instruct him to do against his will. He wants to drive at full speed, but a sign says, “No, the limit is only 80km/h”.

He wants to arrive as early as possible but suddenly a red light instructs him to stop and let others move first.

Someone who is wise and on top of his rational thinking, would never ever see all the road signs as challenge to his right exercising his freedom. The truth is, the road signs are there to help him achieve safety throughout the journey until he reaches the destination.

The same thing applied to our big picture of this life. Do’s and don’ts of Islam are not the obstruction and challenge to the access of his freedom of choice. They come from the Creator who knows better what is good and what is bad in this life. They are there for our safety, peace and harmony.

Someone who has the quality of Taqwa will take his journey like someone who walks through thorny path. He is a person with a full of consciousness about what is good and what is bad around him. He must also have a good self control, like a person who is good in controlling his car steering.

This is the essence of fasting. You learn to exercise your self control.

SELF CONTROL

If someone does not take his lunch because there is nothing to eat, then it causes him tiredness and anger.

But a believer who chooses not to eat while he has everything to do so, for the sake of obeying his Lord, then he is exercising his ability to control himself against some of his desire.

You can eat, but you don’t eat. You can drink, but you learn not to drink, so that you can tell yourself that you are a proactive person. Not a reactive one.

A reactive person will get mad when something stimulates him to anger. He will be sad and out of control when something causes him sadness.

He has no ‘pause’ button. He has no ability to control himself to choose a better reaction. His actions are determined by things around him. He is not the one who controls himself. He is occupied by others. He is under the real occupation of others.

A Muslim is not an effective Muslim if he does not have a control over his own actions. He must be a proactive Muslim.

Return back you self control… you are the strongest!

Fasting makes us stronger, if we correct the way we view it.

Fasting is 30 days intensive training course for the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Muslim.

Of Friendstripper...

Forgive the typo. The erroneous is intentional. I am not trying to be a pervert or promote obscenity. I am talking about friendster. Firstly, I want to apologize, if any of you respectful readers are one of its users. If so, I hope you will not read or scroll further, because my next arguments are inflammatory.

Friendster is a site created by people who believe in connecting and having fun with the virtual life at the same time. (I do not bother to look for whom.. ). Currently, there are over 1 million users (or more.. again I do not bother) in which had dedicated their daily routine vividly to friendster. Users update their lifestyle, keep it as an online diary or journal, put their favorite photos and some are going to the extent of having an online pets. (or don't they?).

So, at the moment, I would consider the acceptance is astronomical. The number of users are rapidly growing in seconds. This also means that friendster is no longer a mere fag. It has been a must for every virtual citizen. Nevertheless, it is boundless, borderless and free-of-charge.

But, enough of the acceptance. I shall say that I am not one of the friendster users. Although, I do have a friendster account before, but I stopped using just a few years ago.

Why did I stop? I was young once. At that moment, I was dangling with my youth and sometimes gone frisky . Friendster was a site for me to search for new friends. Ok, that is so busted! Yes, I was looking for 'girlfriends'. But the search did not take me nowhere. Then, I was getting fed up and taken aback. So, I was not going for friendster anymore just because my initial intention was incorrect. It was a remorse and I stopped logging in to friendster.

Logging in to friendster also had exposed me to the virtual world of liars and imperfectness. Trough the experience, I found that, only 2 out of 10 are true about its users. Which means I am so expose to 80% of lies. That is so unacceptable. SO be it! Leave it be, am I no longer a fan. I am not going to rectify or make things straight. It is already there and I shall move on.

In the latest event, I was asked by one of my chatter friends about having the friendster account. I quickly replied "NO, I hate 'Friendstripper'!" I am saying that, "I do not want to stripped further by an 'equivocator' " (too strong aye?). Then she said to me that I am a loser. So what? Do I care? Never mind that. Then we moved on.

But that does not mean I am against the globalism. I cannot afford to do that. I must adapt or I will be left behind. Instead of having a crave for friendster, I logged in to facebook instead. They are so nice. They have all of this applications which is so addictive. This is the latest craze. In fact I have listed it down as my Top 5 websites I visits everyday. Currently, I have almost 30 friends and its growing.

I hope this will last and all my craps goes there.. and my hopes for the facebook will not turn to a 'friendstripper' as well.. (or did they already met that?).

Add me at my facebook. (MOHD DIAN NAIS Lah)..
C u there.
Adios.
Regards,
Cemillion

Medsyam's Tag

I have been tagged.

Usually, I do not do this because I had never been tagged before. But, Medsyam had challenged me to scrawl some "merepek" (crappy stuffs) here. So, here Goes:

5 WebSites that I Always Visited:

1) www.facebook.com.

- to me, I take it as a real Live "Role Playing Game". The Main character is me and I connect with new people there. Plus, the application are addictive too.. Try it yourself..take sometime to understand how it works and you will be in my boots too..

2) www.ptdportal.com/forum

- this is where I belong. I am too obsess with this. It provides me the information latest events of the PTD world as well as my career stood.. I crave for this and my posts there almost reach at 7,000 posts.

3) www.dikirbarat.net/forum

- this is my latest craze. I must log in to find out about the latest development of "dikir barat" perfomance. The forum does not confine to "dikir barat" only, but also all the stuffs about Kelantan's cultural items including, "Gasing" (Tops and spins), "Silat" (Malay Martial Arts), "Wayang Kulit" (Shadow Puppets) and etc.

- registration is free and there will be updates about perfomances all around Klang Valley.. and some of them I will perform myself.. as a singer... :D

4) www.tradesignum.com

- Free Charting Tools for Bursa Malaysia Fans.. no need to explain further because it is too dry..

5) imageshack.us

- Free hosting site for pictures...

there.

Well, Medcham.. thanks to you.. it really does sounds crappy...


LoL

I want to tag

1) Nazs (Ex-Classmate and mummy to be soon)

2) Chech

3) faruq

4) Lola

5) K-Lynn

Of Fire Fighting Syndrome

I do not mean to demean or demoralise anybody. Neither do I (literally) mean that I am performing it in action. It is a one of a symbolic phrase to tell about something else.

By definition, "fire fighting syndrome" means "a staff in a company rushing from task to task, not completing one before another interrupts them." Concurrently I suffered to both of the symptoms and the syndrome.

I definitely do not want to point my finger to any of my superiors or my subordinates, but i would rather pin it to my forehead for not being able to cope with the pressures.

But there are some certain factors which do contributed towards the severity of this syndrome, of which I will never tolerate such as:

(i) You would never know what is which.. and which is what.. especially in priority.

All tasks that were given to you is labelled as "Most Urgent Matter", "No. 1 Priority", "Top Demand", "critical", "Pronto" and so on. Those prompts are the signs for you to switch on your engine, push your clutch and the expectation was knobbed up to gear number five. If that is not crucial enough, try to drive 5 to 6 cars at one time by yourself. Imagine that!

Top to down arrangement is the most crucial element to expedite the organization's needs. Nevertheless, later on somebody will fill up the empty cups. Regardless, of how tranquil the business should be. The commotion will always be there and only efforts and hopes are the best instruments to be used to cleared it up.

I would say that all of this is not necessary unless trusts were injected to their mind. If I were inside their shoes, I will not believe in processes. I do hold myself to outcome and substance. But then, the blaring only come between the ears and not to the minds of the beholder. It means this is a factor that contributes fiercely to "fire-fighting syndrome."

(ii) The "never-ness" of looking deeply into the big pictures ahead.

Ahead lies the big plain blue oceans of wonder. In front of them are piles of chunk and bits that were originated from nowhere. It appears to be blocking some of the views and blatantly concealed all the wonders. It also allow waves of fire to inflict more damages without a spill of a solution.

Just because of that, they will never see the spirit of the "existency" to begin with. Should they ask "why", certainly the contour will appear by themselves, clearly. If the "answers" were the sought elements, then fire-fighting will never happen. The order will be very clear. The purposes will served itself and the plate of "motivation" will be a better course to dine on.

But, then again, nobody realize it and let it all be flowing down with the river of time.

(iii) No questions are allowed.

Jump into the fire and you shall become the happiest person ever. Free from any liabilieties. Do not forget this though "Enter at your own risks" and no question is allowed at all! I do not think I am able to venture further to this factor but it does contribute.

So what? Ok. Let me tell you about the impact. Clearly "Fire-fighting syndrome" will:

(i) Get you no further than where you started;

(ii) also consumes resources and saps morale; and

(iii) will permanently decrease your perfomance and efficiency.

Any Solutions? Well, frankly speaking, I am thinking for it right now. I just hope that I will get "acquaintance" with solutions as soon as possible.

I hope that I will not grow to become one of the "Members of Real Orthodox Neural System" or in abbreviation (MORONS).

Of Commenting.

Why rate?

- Because you like it. And think that it deserves it!

Why comment?

- Because you think that there are more rooms available for improvement.

- Because you are a 'critique freak'.

- Because you hate it.

- Because there is an 'option' to do it.

- Because it is rewarding.

- Because it satisfies your thirst for condemning other peoples thot!

- Because you have the rights to do it.

- Because you think you are better than them.

The truth is:

- You are way far behind its league.

- You do not have any idea of it.

- Commenting will make you feel good about yourself.

- You do not have anything better to do.

- You are a freaking idiot

- You are a snob with big flashing red nose! And you think that is good.

- You are helping to improve things.

But then:

- You do not even bother to comment.

- Do not remember to do it.

- Feel that it is not worth to comment.

- You are just one step further to the eternal damnation.

- you are an ally to 'Satan'.

- you are just a freak

so be it.

Stop Commenting!

Of a Picture

Let it speaks for itself..