The Painful TRUTH

 

The Painful TRUTH

 

The Lie said to the Truth, "Let's take a bath together, the well water is very nice.  So they got naked and started bathing. Suddenly, the Lie leapt out of the water and fled, wearing the clothes of the Truth.

The Truth, furious, climbed out of the well to get her clothes back. But the World, upon seeing the naked Truth, looked away, with anger and contempt. Poor Truth returned to the well and disappeared forever, hiding her shame. Since then, the Lie runs around the World, dressed as the Truth, and society is very happy...

Because the World has no desire to know the naked Truth.

(Jean-Léon Gérome, 1896.)

 

 

Somehow I don’t wish to blame Covid nor pinpointing countries; but the results of broken weak governments, economy teetering on crashing, finger pointing law breakers, broken vaccinations promises, societal divides, fake news enhancing lies, family disloyalty, and the end result of painful oxygen-deprived deaths is the UGLY truth of humanity Covid has unleashed our global community.   This retched virus is showing up the naked truth.   

 

 

Leadership  is in question. Democracy a myth.  Monarchies under debate.  Major religions are failing.   These are world issues not country picked.  A very heavy burden for Generation Z to evolve.   I shed a tiny tear for them

 

Our values have been pinpointed to societal success.  Highly rated through money, ill gotten or hard earned.   Penultimate is  praise, power and privilege.

 

I have no answer only wishing for a re-set button that is not there.  I admire truth, slightly afraid but comforted that it is ultimately the journey to take.

 

Generation Z, take the torch, make it work in IT and AI  and build the truth so nothing is hidden.

 

 

 

 

CAPSULITIS

 

 

It sounds medically related. 

For the medically untrained – it sounds ominous

For the diagnosed – daily life is incredibly curbed.  

 

Is this pandemic related?  Is it another Covid-19 metastatizing?  

For simpletons like myself, it is thumb and wrist inflammation from over text usage. 

 

“Stop texting.  Rest the wrist. Use dictation application instead and take anti-inflammatory pills” shouted at me from friends and medics.

 

But what do they know.  it is a by-product of my lifestyle for I communicate via texting and typing on my laptop 8 to 12 hours a day..   I’m just a writer.

 

If there was a time machine, given the task to explain this to my grandfather who is in heaven, that we humans don’t speak on phones anymore, as he used to via an operator in his day, but through typing out the words and we can literally take this phone everywhere from toilet to airplane. 

 

Proudly explaining our achievements in technology, ”We can watch movies, porn, buy stocks, delivery of every household needs and even date women”.  I think he would try to understand for two minutes then he would cut the thread by saying,

 

“but your silly device can’t smell the scent of a woman. -  go bandage your wrist and find a stenographer” and he was gone!  Time machine turned off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LOYALTY. - TIME LIMIT?

 

Family Loyalty. A Lifetime sentence?

 

 

It has been on my mind all day today.   Is there a time limit on family loyalty, or is it a moral eternity because of shared DNA?

 

This train of thought hung on the predicament of Harry Windsor.   Before I sentence him, It also hung on my moral compass too.  

 

Just because grandmother is an ageing Queen, and the possibility of 99 yr old grandpa conking out very soon; is it justified in a “tell-all incrimination of family secrets” because your papa did not father you adequately, or perhaps is not your biological father after all?   Whatever the gripe; toxic or not, swallow and show dignity for the sake of obligations we all have in life.

 

Then I shine the torch onto myself.  Sitting on a tightrope, I justify these balanced views as a way to guide others, and a way to correct my own moral judgement.   

 

Loyalty to my fellow DNA sharers have been questionable, but never acted upon.  Would I fight for their actions, no.   Would I applaud them for their successes, real or unreal, yes.  The reason is simple enough, I value my dignity and sullying those that share my DNA, stains my persona.

 

 I am lucky to have loyalty from my three children unreservedly.  The love given to them was unreserved and equal to their needs.   I propped them up with their weakness and shooed them off with their strength; never once demanding reward.  I have given when I had nothing to give.   I have stood back when they needed independence, even though the road they took was questionable.  I need not to applaud for myself, my children say it all by their actions.

 

Through the media, we were shown Harry’s every movement from birth until his unfortunate decision to liberate himself from obligations yet using his birthright to accommodate his needs.

That dignity is now stained through public tell-all and through his actions, it has taught me loyalty to DNA sharers however uncomfortable, must be upheld.

 

 

 

 

 

ZOOM STRESS

 

ZOOM STRESS

 

If you haven’t heard of Zoom, it is a videotelephony software program.  Zoom Stress is not mentioned but I will attempt to reconstruct your feelings before, during and after a zoom meeting.  

 

Zoom stress is the product of the pandemic.   From the beginning of 2020, our lives changed drastically.   WFH became an acronym indicating the lucky ones who held their jobs were Working From Home; the norm for being in the office but clad in pajamas. 

 

Those that spend countless hours on it daily, grow along with the app’s constant revamping in order to accommodate increasing global usage.  Those like myself, twice weekly user, tend to stay stagnated in this progressively challenging expansion. But like them and me, the stress level of zooming is now credited to increasing our cognitive load.

 

Cognitive load explained in layman’s terms :  multi-tasking brain using memory; (much like driving a manual-gear vehicle, straining to hear a GPS voice, not of native tongue, directing  “300, 200, 100 yards turn left at junction”, in a foreign country driving on the wrong side of the road, with your favorite music blasting max audio within 4sq meter space).

 

ZOOM meetings takes away the most important aspect of inter-action, non-verbal communication. Before it takes place, preparation is key.  The backdrop of your wall, showing a huge library is coveted. Bathroom or Bedroom backdrop is not ideal. It could complicate matters if your butt naked secret affair navigates to the toilet bursting to unload his bladder. With lagging connections going on and off; sound disconnects missing important sentences, having to be repeated, and background intermittent unmistakable audio relief of urine splashing against the toilet bowl is too embarrassing to contemplate.

 

Awaiting all members of divisions to join the meeting leaves a void of awkward silence. Seeing your own face looking back with extreme anxiety; hair not combed, forgot the lipstick bringing on an expression of discontent, suppressing anxiety, and annoyance, when best foot forward was not achieved.  And the conference meeting has yet to start.  Anxiety level one achieved.

 

All eight divisions join, and the meeting is underway.  You want to interject a point, each time you start to speak, nobody stops, they continue.   You politely wait your turn, still nobody stops so you decide to cut in …….  realizing the problem, unguarded you say ‘f..k’ now audible to all, just as you press the button to unmute.  The agenda has passed.  Anxiety level two achieved.

 

Energy consuming as we work harder to process non-verbal clues.  Attitudes and feelings among colleagues in influencing management decision-making gets lost.  Constant focusing hour upon hour mounting tension, increased stress level is exhausting. Anxiety level three achieved.

 

Third hour into the meeting, a headache starts, you need to go to the toilet, prepared Tylenol in front of you, but everyone will see the act of pill taking, the boss has yet to have a 15 minute break and the company loser talks non-stop.   Anxiety level four achieved.

 

Conference call ended after 4 hours of stress. WFH (echoeing WTF) means less travel time, no need for fancy clothes, still in your pajamas but the exhaustion that takes over is immense and slumped back in bed, you spend the rest of the day retrieving loss strength and desperately recalling what decisions took place and your action required.

 

A far cry from Pigeon Post.  

Slower paced but stress free.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ASQ.

       A  S  Q

Continued from last blog..............

 

Returning home was a surreal experience.    Choosing Our Alternative State Quarantine was easy as I knew it well.   For it was a hotel owned by friends of the family, from 3 generations down.

 

Going back as far as 30 years, there were many tête-à-tête luncheons at Ma Mason,  Gala black tie dinners, high society weddings, annual Flower festival, Book Launches, Fashion shows; and  member of Clark Hatch fitness centre.  It certainly was a fixture in our lives.   Memories of stepping out of the limousine with my 5-inch stiletto heels, into the long marbled steps, sashaying my new Italian outfit, clutching a glittering bag, proudly hanging onto my suave executive hubby in black tie, we looked THE COUPLE.   

 

This time, with second wave Covid-19; beginning of  2021, we arrive from the airport in a van resembling a grey prison vehicle, reminiscent of the film Con Air circa 1997.  The Hazmat suited driver complete with visor was visibly separated from us through a thick glass panel.   

 

As the van drove up the elevated path depositing us at the Hotel’s same marbled steps; 6 or 7 Hazmat suited staff greeted us with an orange bag to deposit our shoes and swap them for white bedroom slippers into the lobby.   Flashback as if in a movie, those 5-inch stiletto that clicked heavenly expensive sounds into the marbled hall was replaced by towel material fit-all-size slippers, 3 sizes too small for my hubby struggling not to lose it along the way to the lift.   How demoralizing, truth of times hit me right in the face.

 

The lobby facing us in other times, teaming with staff, well turned-out guests, elevator music, lights.  The hustle and bustle of a city hotel in holiday season was dark, silent with echoing voices, the once lobby bar with a pianist playing well known tunes in the background looked sad and unused.  It had a ghostly eerie effect.   As we followed the check-in lady, my mind does the usual.   Carradine room?  I hope not, for if it was, I would surely make a definitive fuss. Don’t get the ghostly joke? then google it.

 

Second time quarantine brings a familiar daily routine.  Of course, comparisons are instantly made between the first quarantine to the second quarantine.  How strict each country observe the rules, or conversely how easy to break them tells the profile of the country’s personality.

 

What more have I learnt in this second imprisonment?   A lot.   A staunch liberal, fighting for freedom, democracy, human rights living under dictatorial rule, despising those that bend the influence for their benefit only.   Or open arms to a parliamentary republican government that truly adheres to the rule of law, albeit some laws are hard to swallow.  Easy to judge where my leanings fall but, yes there is a BUT.

 

Imprisonment in a confined space for 14 days to stop the pandemic, determines the strength of your backbone, the core of your soul.   It is how you use those days to level out strengths and weaknesses.  Harder when the outside world is THE dominant screen in your room espousing BBC, CNN,  FOX, or Aljazeera their version of the globe’s chaotic state.  Trumps psychotic denial, Boris Johnson’s increasing tiers, Xi Jinping’s threat to world health, Putin’s approval rating lowest due to acute economic hardship, and third world Prayuth’s government flip-flopping laws in less than 48 hours…..make for a very discombobulated world of confused priorities.

 

I learnt some very sustaining qualities from this second confinement:

 

I learnt that my patience has no limits. I learnt that pain is life. I learnt to understand the other person’s journey was just as difficult as mine.  I learnt that I have a price.   I learnt to transform any hate I had in my heart to lower its volume.  I learnt that I am part of that heritage/culture that I occasionally despise, and that I should try to help in small ways to change it.  I learnt we all lie to cover up mistakes or inadequacies but instead try to teach that transparency has a vulnerable beauty.  I learnt that discipline is inborn.  And I learnt the art of giving; it escalates the dopamine surge for pleasure and reward.

 

 

 

 

 

QUARANTINE

 

How you survive the 14 days of isolation is the mark of your character. Withholding freedom affects us all with polarized results.    Intolerance or patience.  Stressful anguish or calming energy.  Mental disturbance or intellectual happiness.  

I am built with a fair share of endurance, and with that I was awarded eight items necessary in coming out of quarantine with balanced joy and serenity. 

 

These 8 requirements are space, light, city view, music, wifi, mini-fridge stocked, balcony and a life-long loving partner are perquisite in coming out energized, emotionally sane and with an enormous amount of gratitude for a well governed country in pandemic times.  It is Singapore that many criticize for its restrictive and unique rules.  I, whose God is freedom, takes the strict controlled regulations with open arms.

Besides death, fractured families, Covid-19 virulent damage has caused world governments to fumble and fall, fail in their duty to protect its people.   Some governments even use Covid-19 restrictions to strategize their ruling legitimacy under mounting dissatisfied populace.  

 

Fourteen days are broken up into self-introspection and outside interference. Learning about the candid self without bias; what triggers the layers of pretense one possesses.  Does one pretend, when no one is around; or does reality irritate to a dissatisfied grump growing rapidly into a depressive state.

 

I learnt that simplicity is the state of ecstatic contentment.  The more down to earth, the more real the sentiment, the more unshakeability of my foundation.

 

I learnt that a simple soft bread roll with basic sliced cheddar cheese is as good as my French baquette fortified with camembert. The sunrise that I am able to witness every morning, reinforces my soul with another cherished day on this earth.  I embrace the ingenuity of the wifi, internet technology that connects me to the world, but unable to intelligently explain how it works.    Or the music downloaded from Itunes, invigorate my soul, reminding me that my youthful sexy movements are still intact.

 

My irritating habit of tidiness in confined spaces was truly appreciated by a typical alpha male with a messy predisposition – my husband.  The exchange of our conversations ranged from old memories enjoyed together to engaging him in something new on the internet, knowing his obvious delight from it.  His expansive knowledge of English history always fascinates me, so much more fun than acquiring it through self-research.  The intellectual intimacy built through the years condensed in the 14 days will never sever, from any divine intervention.  That gift I carry with honor.

 

The burst of excitement held out for so long to rejoice with family must be reasonably contained, for the ultimate joy of reuniting – the pinnacle of happiness that cannot be bought or stolen will invariably come to a return journey to face yet another 14 days of capture.  That second quarantine will give birth to the real me. And I look forward to that delivery. 

 

To be continued………..

ACCENT DISCRIMINATION

I am of mixed race.   By low percentage, only droplets of this and that; that defines me.   To look at, I have all the features pertaining to Asia.  More South East, as my almond shaped eyes are  walnutty round, my fair skin belies a Caucasian tone, and my small  bone structure strictly oriental and an obvious inbred subservient nature. There’s obvious history.   But before I divulge the naughty slice of my Germanic undertones, I want to address my own narrow view that finally broke recently to show objectivity in its true light.

I married a Caucasian, a trace of ginger, with virulent freckles, and a strong Viking-like bone structure, with an inbred undertone of a fighter.  The opposite end of the spectrum of me. We produced 2 boys and a girl.  Their obvious mixed race, brought a wide range of diversity;  powerful determination with subtle Asian charms;  the strain of freckles, a predominant feature in all three.  Strong bone structure mixed with a strain of exotic Asiatic features gave my children perfect symmetrical beauty according to  BBC’s The Human Face.

Having traversed over the tribal barrier, I gave myself a pat on the shoulder that I am the thinking modern woman, with objectivity in race relations, crossover of cultural gaps, powered by success that Kipling’s East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, was such a far-fetched long ago thought that should clearly be dismissed, poetry shelved and long forgotten.  How could I be so wrong about myself?

The day of revelation came last week.

Sitting closely together on our big settee, my husband, the Viking-like overpowering size was watching BBC news at full volume.  I, the petite Asian multi-task wife, listening to the news, with my head down simultaneously answering messages on my phone, flipping through Instagram and scrolling down Facebook as we do, every now and again looking up at the TV screen when some absurdity is discussed among known reporters.

          

I love the beauty of accents and having schooled in the UK from kindergarten upwards, I developed naturally the quality of the school’s accent; mostly upper-middle class, high-end that distinctly puts your GPS at Kensington unlike the strong Cockney Londoner or East-end Coronation Street twang.  In earlier years I admired BBC’s announcers but then having to gradually accept the politically correct regional tones; the Scottish notes against the Welsh sing-song and even tolerated some Brummies.  

Suddenly as I am scrolling my string of FB messages, a beautiful accent talking about Boris Johnson’s mistake of the day, I was struck by the tone; deep and husky, reminiscent of my school like days, posh and expensive, and admittedly sexy.  I looked up expecting a Daniel Craig James Bondish look-a-like; but my total shock was resplendently echoed in my husband’s quizzical expression.  He had a screen perfect face; there in full frontal feature was his Sikh turban, sideburns with the required beard and ‘tash beautifully groomed and tucked. 

Studio lights known for its stark brightness, helped to lower the dark tones by a significant margin, nevertheless the screen never lies and the beauty, symmetrical features that can be seen between the blue turban and the beard/tash was truly handsome.   My shocked demeanor shocked me even more of what was ravaging in my mind #blacklivesmatter and all its ramifications.   

The accent didn’t match the face.

 I’m not racist, in fact having broken the values of marrying out of the tribe nonsense, I judged myself differently, but then a thought struck.

My Asian face, small body, walnutty eyes, seemingly could be from anywhere from as far west as Myanmar, stretching east to the Philippines, as far north as mid China,  reaching south to Indonesia; encompassing a fair range in square miles overland and overseas, but what was coming out of my mouth was this Kensington posh lingo.  

The accent didn’t match the face.  

How many quizzical looks, silences, and remarks made throughout the years have been judged on me.  How dare I give such a shocked expression when this Sikh reporter came on.   Then the obvious thoughts raced at great speed already summoning him up in less than a second.  Rich parents, top school, upholding tradition, arranged marriage……how ashamed I was to have such notions.   Or….. my twisted sarcastic assumption….perhaps BBC’s producer finger pointed a staff member in a roomful; he looked right ‘Tonight’s your night – put him in make-up, he’s going on the 8 o’clock news’.

From that night I have vowed never to judge.