A former classmate, who now holds an MBA from Unimas, last week came to my house in Merdang Lumut, Kota Samarahan and found me sitting underneath a tree beside the fish pond.
“Enjoying the fresh air and serene view, bro?” he asked.
“Well, just thinking, bro,” I replied.
The man, a year younger than I, laughed. “It is one way to look for inspiration for your next column?”
“No. Thinking. Just thinking.”
Such opportunities to just think are rare, especially alone and undisturbed.
Our offices and homes – if they are in the cities – are not suitable for quiet cogitation.
Even in the semi-urban setting, our houses often growl as the clothes drier whirls, churn and hiss as the dishes are washed, and whine while the vacuum cleaner does its work or scream as our toddlers fight for mom and dad’s loving attention or over an aimless toy.
Outdoors, it is hard to find a lake side that is not as noisy as a printing press outlet at work or a stretch of stream that is fit to sit for a pensive hour.
After so many years in various services and work engagements, many of us have become so habituated to this clamour of human activity that we accept it as inexorable.
A lot of people, my other
half included, have come to conclude that thoughtful solitude is aberrant.
The shocking implication is that the human spirit must be sidetracked from the catastrophic enticement of its own company.
However, people weren’t like that, even teenagers, when I was one, liked periods of quiet reflection.
Between the age of 13 and 15, in my first three years at Saratok Secondary School, I spent hours reading novels borrowed from the school library during weekend leaves and holidays – atop my favourite tree at the jungle edge, next to our hovel in our Bukit Tinggi rubber plantation up the Melupa river, a Krian tributary.
Occasionally distracted by the “meows” of my impatient cat Embin down at the tree base, over the years I managed to
read most, if not all, of the simplified versions of Shakespeare’s works.
At times, I would just stay up there just thinking, oblivious to the multitude of sounds some 20 feet above the ground – for hours.
My pond side’s rendezvous last week was a fond reminder
of the tree top platform of the late 60s though this time
around it was just a brooding moment.
Years later, when I turned 19, together with two other cousins, we spent three days camping in the Sebirong jungle and enjoyed rod fishing/angling at the crystal clear stream.
Sometimes we just pondered and were as quiet as the wilderness itself.
We lost track of the outside world and were detached from any civilisation.
In 1982, during an overnight journey of an eight-day scout leadership training course in Santubong, I tripped and broke my glasses that rendered me immobile due to unaided
eyesight.
While the others rushed back to base camp for a two-hour journey on foot, I was left on my own at the seaside along Telok Belian, next to the present Damai Resort.
Knowing help was coming, I built a fire to show my exact
location.
I cannot recall that I felt lonely but there were plenty of items to think about, plus at least two hours of just thinking before then Sarawak Chief Scout Commissioner Safri Awang Zaidel (now Tan Sri Datuk Seri) and a few others came to
my rescue using a chartered speedboat.
Nevertheless, it was a rare moment when one was forced to think of various alternatives, just in case rescue failed to come by.
On a positive note, I wished one fine day someone would come across my scout name tag that was lost during the trip, especially one who is involved in the scout movement.
At that time, I never thought or dreamt that one day I would become the state scout publicity commissioner as I am now.
Nevertheless, I did ponder becoming a member of the state training team after getting my two-bead wood badge.
This became a reality about four or five years later – in 1987, Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar
(now Datuk Seri) attended
one of my lectures during a Wood Badge Part IVA course at the Scouts Headquarters in Kuching.
He later took over from Safri Awang as the state Chief Scout Commissioner.
When I was a boy, I spent hours in the evening gazing at the sky, especially in the late afternoon when the sun was going down – “daydreaming” as it was called.
Neither of my parents objected to this; after all, little did they know about it as I was alone among the greenery of the shifting cultivation during weeding season, one that would offer the best scene for Van Gogh, Gaugin or Monet.
These moments provided me space to think and plan though I only came to know about the great aforesaid painters two decades later.
However, in today’s society and for today’s educated parents, a boy in solitude could become an object of worry.
Many fear that seclusion is dangerous. A boy in reverie is therefore hurriedly sent down to play some games with others, lest he would become
anti-social.
Most people think that daydreamers grow up to become achievers or doers but only on the condition they are given space to think and to adjust to the changing needs of the
environment.
But a boy who is deprived of this thinking space will find it difficult to adjust and to go along with the current environmental needs.
He will have no time to know about himself and therefore
this shortcoming will result in him not being able to decide
the best course of action for
himself.
He therefore becomes “misadjusted”, a miserable affair that deprives the world of enjoying his full potentials.
On the other hand, our today’s world really needs thinkers who could face titanic problems peculiar to the 21st century’s era of globalisation and world without borders.
Just think for a minute or two, longer if it suits you. At the end of the day, you would find solutions to your long outstanding problems.
Or you could even be featured among the great 21st century global thinkers.
