money, money, money

desiderata.english

At one time in the olde days, when hearts were young and gay, and romantics and writers, artists, and poets still held sway, it was Love that maketh the world go round.

But today, where the world revolves around Fortune Top 500, it's the Bill Gates and Donald Trump, Li Ka Shing and Robert Kuok who hold court, and it is MOney, HOney, that maketh the world spin, and spin, and spin.

It is so tragic that Malaysia has fostered a culture of patronage, cronyism and greed among the polticians, especially within the Barisan Nasional coalition -- noticeably in UMNO, being the main component in the 14-member BN coalition. This was one of the issues that academic Professor Edmund Terence Gomez spoke of in an article "The Perils of pro-Malay Policies" in the regional monthly Far Eastern Economic Review (September issue). (Desiderata may discuss this more at length next week, Insya-Allah.)

Desi had written via this Blog earlier that in the old days, a scandal like the Bank Bumpiputra-BMF scandal of RM2.4billion occurred only once in a blue moon, and people felt outrage for a whole decade.
But in the last ten years, OMG, I've lost count of the billion-dollar scandals that had sapped the country's economic standing; just citing those which come to mind easily -- bailouts of MAS, Perwaja Stel, Bakun Dam, et cetera, et cetera, as The King (in The King and I) would say. So much so the general populace has begun to feel immune to be surprised, or outraged, any more. And that's more than tragic ... for without this sense of outrrage, there won't be a movement for reform, and without reformation, the only way to go is Down, Down and Down.

So let's now just sing the chorus to reflect the Malaysian Reality Today, in Desi's Mind, I don't know if my EsteemedReaders agree. Ne'er mind, as I would tell my YoungOnes, Dare to Be Different, in one's thinking, and action.

Money, Money, Money
Artist: ABBA



I work all night, I work all day, to pay the bills I have to pay
Ain't it sad
And still there never seems to be a single penny left for me
That's too bad
In my dreams I have a plan
If I got me a wealthy man
I wouldn't have to work at all, I'd fool around and have a ball...

Money, money, money
Must be funny
In the rich man's world
Money, money, money
Always sunny
In the rich man's world
Aha-ahaaa
All the things I could do
If I had a little money
It's a rich man's world


I recall mGf YAN -- fellow journalist from Kuching or Catsville I fondly call it (located at http://yancorner.blogspot.com) -- once wrote on "Money matters" in a post on April 09, 2005 that "If you are like most people, you feel uncomfortable talking about money. This is especially so for writers/authors." (The subject arose when Desiderata started filing stories for The Borneo Post, after Yan sighted Desi's Place and fell in love with WORDS. Bee Gees' rocking number, remember?

"But my other good friend, Angela, said that she wants to work on projects that satisfies her emotionally, spiritually and financially. Because she said, at the end of the day, she still have bills to pay," Yan added.

"Money does provide a sense of worth in some ways. How much your boss pay you indicates how valued you are in the workplace.

But, it is your attitude towards money that shows the direction of your spiritual walk."

She also shared this quote: "The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money."

YES, if we all woke up one day, like those residents in Aceh, Sumatra, who lost all last December following the Tsunami catastrophe, leaving several hundred thousands residents penniless, or the more recent New Orleans devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina,again making thousands homeless and stranded -- how many of us could stand up soon enough, recover and later walk tall to strive again. Rebuild, regain and reform the human spirits?

I wonder if I could, or I would? Or just Give Up?
How about you?

Reflect on this before tomorrow comes. This is a worst case scenario.
Worth a while for Sunday's rumination, so that WHAT IF ... you would have at least travelled the terrian in your mind once ... yes, it's easy in theory, but at the end of the day, what's possible can happen, and one is put to the real practical test. Man Proposes, God Disposes, believe in it because the human individual is of such narrow&shallow understanding and ken of the world surrounding him ... Man has trifled too much with nature's environment, and always there is a price to pay.


To the Americans, what happened on 911?
To the British, what happened on 7SEVEN?
To Malaysians, can we envisage any scenario as close and devastating as these?
I don't know.

Is Desiderata justified in postulating that on the Economic Landscape, if we are not careful,
some sort of Tsunami will crash down on us, sooner than later?
Call me a Doomsayer if you will. But this nation's "culture of greed" must exact its consequences, so BE PREPARED.

As a counter-point to this gloomy scenario painted above, perhaps Desi must end on a more cheerful note, philosophically anchoring on my Sifu in PoetsWorld, so
I'll close with an excerpt from Max Ehrmann's the desiderata of happiness, edited by Robert L. Bell:

"Do these things pay -- these poems that you write?"
"Oh! yes, so much I am almost ashamed
Of my reward, so very great it is."
"Then tell me why you are so poorly dressed?"
"I did not know that I was poorly dressed."
"Indeed you are. And think of how you live.
You should have blooming gardens, houses grand,
If your reward is great as you have said.
I understand you live in three small rooms."
"And that is two too many, I'm afraid."