So that I Will remember

 

I have misplaced my glasses many times ever since I needed one. I have misplaced them so many times in a week that my wife begged with me to get one of those neck strap thing for my glasses as to do way with my almost daily questions as to whether she had seen my glasses. But pride prevailed. Though my body ached all over in the morning and rare strands of white are slowly creeping into my black head of hair and I have to spend some time looking for my glasses everyday, I am adamant that I am not of that age bracket. Hell no. Until the day I am offered senior discounts, I will maintain the delusion of time having no mastery over me.

Like my glasses, same goes with things that I encounter. I have learned that what is not written down will be lost or forgotten. That saying of Madey about Malays came to mind. The practice of stories, traditions, laws and customs being passed down from orally from one generation to another is dying out. One might say that written records have somewhat robbed the magic out of oral story telling aspect of memory and records but such is the way of the world. One things perishes and another will take its place. Now, physical books are slowly being complemented with e-books and yet we are still not a society of readers, but that is a matter for another day. Anyhow, point is, write it down or you are liable to forget the damned thing you are supposed to remember. What you jot down, you can see. What you can see, you can retain better in your mind.

I thought that my love of typing things (and making things up) to be no more than a youthful indulgence, a passing fad for many blogs of my contemporary during university days have lain fallow after the late 2010s when most of us joined the working world but time showed otherwise. I am now required to treat writing as an occupational hazard though it be in terse legalese and of the truth and nothing but the truth. Maybe, when I can carve out the time I will be able to type/make things up again for fun (and for a bit of profit). Not in court of course and not here, in this blog.

Unlike its many predecessors lost in the Void, the purpose of this blog is for me to write down what I have discovered throughout my practice as long as I am in practice. More or less- lah. If I do write about family and the human things which I will from time to time it is because I wanted to remind myself the reason why I am in legal practice to begin with. So bear with me.

Another reason I started this blog also is because some time ago in the course of a conversation that began in a clear late afternoon and ended in the dim twilight where you can barely see each other’s face in the murk, a guru of mine suggested to me to get typing again as the means to let off the excess angst and steam of litigation practice in a healthy way. It works, to certain extent.

While I cuss and indulge in profanities (which is one way of looking at it) in my stuff here from time to time, I choose to look at it as putting extra emphasis to certain points I am making. I am after all letting some steam and trying to record things at the same time.

I write in both Malay and English because my Malay is mostly in bahasa pasar which could do with refinement and my English could do with an improvement in terms of clarity and quality. Maybe not King’s English material but something pleasant to the ears and eyes at the very least.

That got me thinking.

If King’s English is the yardstick of the correct and pure version of English then what is the Malay version of it? Agong’s Malay? If so which Agong? I mean we have words like Bajet which is the shameless phonetic copy of the word ‘’budget’’. The word Bajet was previously used by my schoolmates to refer to the act of being stingy with your lunch or goodies or what ever you have on hand.

Eg:

- Weh, sikit roti kau

-Tak boleh.

-Ek eleh, bajet betul kau ni

I’d like to think perhaps one of them have risen high in the world, into the Parliament itself even, to have made the word bajet on the lips of every politicians every year. That would be something.

Anyway, I hope this blog to be the online reference point for my future self as long as the servers are up and running. So that if my memory fails me earlier than expected, it would be a repository of my practicing life. Perhaps my sons would come across it one day, cackling and hooting in laughter at my discoveries and my many attempts to impose order to chaos that is my life as a practitioner.

If my conclusions are wrong, correct me. If you find it useful, good for you. Mine is about the basic stuff. Nothing fancy or in depth as I find most blogs or stuff written by older and more experienced lawyers. Mine is about the kind of things (not strictly about legal practice) you would be afraid to ask your boss or bosses for fear of being seen as less manly or not as bright as previously thought of. If you think what I write about is shit, then it is on you who are reading this to write something better and far more interesting.

In a way this blog is that neck strap thing, but for my practice (mainly). There are after all limits to my (many) delusions.