Sonata For Good Men

There are simply days that I loath to be alone with my own thoughts where the dread and anxieties of tomorrow are all too overpowering that it saps away my focus to work. It would make my heart race and set my feet tapping impatiently. Those would be the days that I would leave the office early after doing all that I can at work before seeking company amongst my practitioner close friends. The vet small timers, the newbies, the yet-to get-there. They get me. We fight the same battles. The difference is in setting and scale. They feel the same allure of stability that is expected of them and yet they have the same love for independence that made them start on own, that punk-ish urge to do it themselves and give the finger to norms and expectations. They feel and battle through the feeling of anxiety, depression or downright being burnt out all the time, they have the same concerns about providing for their family and most importantly they know the need to make a difference in an indifferent world by what we do. We struggle to make sense of our place in this world. In a way we are jihadists, sans the AKs and balaclavas and suicide vests. We all struggle to live.

I would like to think that I emerged from the COVID Pandemic and the Lockdowns unscathed but the reality is I emerged from the lockdown to crave the reassurance that only human company can provide. These chaps would be it. They get it. Over chai, tea or other beverages and copious amounts of nicotine in many forms, we’d talk shit, whine about clients, judges, cases, come up with schemes (sometimes wacky) to make money by way of legal practice, exchange legal opinion or two over some case or other, sought and give advice and in between all those, talk about Life itself. I would not demean these sessions to call them as lepak-ing.  They are not. In fact these sessions are beyond it. Lepak-ing in my dictionary would mean a stretch of time spent on doing nothing worthwhile. These sessions are not it. These sessions are worth it. Despite the meandering conversations and dick jokes not once have I ever emerged at the end of it unenlightened over some matter or other. As the parlance goes; sentiasa ada pengisian. Both figuratively and physiologically as my chest would hurt from the smoking after such hours long session and sometimes my cheeks would hurt from all the grin and laughter but my head would be clear, my heart no longer raced. I would be at peace. In a way it is therapy but with naan or meggi goreng. All thanks to these close friends.

In the words of my guru, sometimes I pick them up, sometimes they pick me up. These handful of men. Good men. For sure they have their own flaws, as do I. Who doesn’t?  That does not negate their kindness, their willingness to help, their good conscience. And it is the flaws that made them approachable and identifiable to me at first. I wanted to be amongst fellow Men, not mythical beings. To be a man is to have flaws. ‘’You love despite the faults’’, William Faulkner once wrote or said, I can’t be sure which, and I love these handful of good men to bits. They are my brothers from my other mother and wish them all the best in the world.

May they land that whale of a client, may they find success in everything that they do,

May they have peace and contemplation in their household,

May they have stillness in their hearts and may God grant them their earnest wishes.

May we live a long and fruitful life so that I can taunt them for being a bunch of old geezers for I will be forever young (in my head).

May they remain good men.