AFIQSAYS | afiqsays it as it is

Selamat Hari Raya Korban

Sacrifice is the word of the day. Sacrifice.

ie:

Prophet Ibrahim almost slayed his son prophet Prophet Ismail because he was instructed by God to do so. Sacrifice.

Mahathir slayed a few racist troublemakers with Ops Lalang to ensure peace in the country. Sacrifice.

Our country let PR win in several states to teach BN a lesson. Sacrifice.

School lessons were taught on tables just before SPM. Sacrifice.

SPM students who lives in hostels had to eat maggie because their canteens are flooded. Sacrifice.

To eat the maggie goreng cooked by my beloved father even when I'm on a strict diet. Sacrifice.

Alor Setar

I'm off to Alor Setar. Tak sabar tengok banjir! Seen it, heard it but I never actually experience it.

NOW

It bothered me a bit that I live most of my life preoccupied with the past and future. My aspirations results nothing but anxiety and my past made me a product of consequences. I think almost everyone is trapped in this mindset prism. I feel connected to so many affiliations that it limits my progress to be the best that I can be. Race, language, religion, family background etc. are made to define who I am as a person.

Some people thinks those affiliations is very important to determine one's self worth. If Barrack Obama defines himself with his religion, race and family background, he wouldn't have become the first black president of the United States.

Who I am is a consequnce of what I am doing not what I did or about to do. This concept is still very new to me so I'm still adjusting.

I have a temper, my merajuk episodes are legendary. But when I understood the -I am who I am Now- concept, I made the best effort to see myself from another vantage point. For the sake of explaining, I see myself from a CCTV camera positioned in the corner of the room. This very thought calmed me down a lot when I get temperamental.

At the risk of sounding preachy, let's do this together. Slowly shed off all our affiliations and be what we want to be.

I want to be on Oprah!

Oh wait, I heard she's retiring.

Afiq Tengah Emo

What does it take for me to get an internship? I just don't get it. I just don't fucking get it.

I'm tired of courting with ad agencies, sending dozens of resumes, sending in expensive portfolios and argh..! Can't you tell? I'm in a very bad mood today.

Everyone wants me to grab whatever is in front of me and run with it but I want more, something that is almost out of my reach. That's why I abandoned architecture and decided to take up advertising. But after months of trying to get in, I found myself in the same spot as I was when I first started. It is as if I was running in circles. I'm so frustrated with myself. I have to achieve more to show them I'm bloody fucking talented! I may not come from a rich family and have powerful connections but I am hardworking, passionate and fuming with eternal rage.

It's just so hard..! I'm only human. Forgive me for showing my weakness for a few minutes. I know I have to work harder, fuck off. I know I have to do more, don't tell me 'What are you waiting for!'

I need a shoulder to cry on that's all. Everyone thinks I'm strong and have a bright future, as if I was given a silver spoon from the get go. I fooled a lot of people, I know. I have a bankrupt mother and a father who retired early from the police force. I'm not priviledged so yes, to a certain extent, I am strong. Don't be fooled with my english. Not all english speaking malays are well off. I am a sad charity case. I live in my aunts' houses, not being able to afford to rent my own. This is a case for many people my age but they settled for less. I want more. But more is fucking hard to get. It's achievable but as I wallow in my misery, it seems like a continent away.

Emo is my word for today. I'm very emo today. With a life so stagnant and unproductive like mine, I can't help it. Let me be.

Potong

Knifey the cat was successfully neutered yesterday. I can't help but to be reminded of my own circumcision.

(bites lips)

The sting of the injection, the pain, the pain, the pain. And the kenduri! I can't believe they prepared delicious food for everyone EXCEPT Nael and I. We were only allowed to eat porridge and bland steamed fish. To make matters worse, every kid who came to the kenduri received 3 packs of Mamee Monster EXCEPT for us.

Everytime I meet my relatives, a voice from the sub-conscious tells me "They have seen your penissssss~" I remembered having people lifting the hung cloth that covered my bare lower body to see my penis, acknowledge it and conclude with a curt "Elok." Some even gave me money after seing my newly circumcised penis. Was it even necessary to look? Nael didn't get as much attention though. I was told by an older second cousin that visitors were curious about my privates.

"Depa nak check betoika kalau budak puteh teloq dia puteh jugak"

Really? Do you people really want to know this?

We spent a week playing video games until we got sick of it (which was a very strange new feeling) and reading Mr Q, Doraemon, Kapten Tsubasa and Dragon Ball Z.

I see that kids nowadays don't have to be held captives by their grandmothers anymore. Their circumcised penis are fitted with a plastic case that enables them to carry on with their normal lives.

Umph. Memanglah senang but it comes with a price. No big kenduri, no duit sunat and no special favours!

Padan muka! (dan kote)

Dreams

Yes, I still have high hopes to make films but for the time being, I'm concentrating on making advert videos. Trained as an architect, I'm really good when it comes to translating briefs. I won 4 short video competitions and lost in all the short film competitions I entered. I'm not saying I sucked at making film but I am very inexperienced in this field. I think a certain level of maturity is needed to make good films and I haven't found my 'voice' yet.

Even though I haven't won any awards yet for the two short films I made, 4 Peringkat Ajal is a cult classic in UIA and is available in almost all PCs in UIA colleges. This made all my actors and actresses who worked pro bono local celebrities. Even the late Yasmin Ahmad watched 4 Peringkat Ajal and commented:

I want to be a Creative Director like Yasmin Ahmad. I want to make successful ads and make films as a hobby. Sounds a lot like Yasmin Ahmad right? Haha, I aspire to be as good or better than her in the future.

I felt that it was a sign that she collapsed a week before the day she was going to interview me! I was like "Die lah like this! God doesn't want me to be in advertising!" But then again, everything happens for a reason and I think her passing taught me that I have to pave my own path in order to reach my dreams. What are my dreams you ask? Winning an Oscar is one of them!

I'm currently making 3 advert videos for 3 international competitions. It is my wish to get acknowledged internationally so I'll be able to work in ad agencies in cities like London, New York, Hong Kong or Bangkok. Those places are Meccas of advertising! I'm so excited to start these 3 projects. Anyone who wants to help me with your ideas are welcomed to do so.

“When you reach for the stars you may not quite get one, but you won't come up with a handful of mud either.” -Leo Burnett

Photographs

If you've been reading this blog long enough, you would know that my childhood is not exactly normal. It is statistically normal but still considered as a cultural taboo. I still don't understand this. In some cases, divorce is inevitable in a marriage but yet, the aftermath that takes its stride soon after is an unquantifiable mystery.

I'm greatful to have enjoyed the first 10 years of my life with my parents still together. My childhood at this very important stage, was in tact. Unlike my brothers, they have very little recollections of what happened during their childhood. It was as if their first decade was craddled in a formula 1. It happened so fast that they themselves, to this very day, could not comprehend the gravity of their past.

Although granted with a relatively happy childhood, I was denied of its namesake. Everyone thinks that reminiscing about my childhood is a painful ordeal, so to save me from any more pain, my past is treated like an empty void. I hated being a subject of pity so I pretended that the divorce didn't affect me at all. I used to put up pictures of my family on the wall everytime we move to a new place (we moved a lot since the divorce) only to be scolded by my mother.

"Kenapa Afiq letak gambar your father and umi dekat dinding."

"Sebab ada Afiq, bapak dan umi lah.."

For her, that picture might have represented broken dreams, unfulfilled destinies and unrealised hopes. But for me it was a picture of my family. Umi became vengeful to a point that anything related to bapak is deemed unholy and taboo. I don't see why my mother can't put aside her anger to let me cling on to my love of my family. My family. I have a family and it is mine. It might not be hers but it's mine so I became increasingly defensive of my past.

By then I began a habit of tracking old pictures and hiding them for safekeeping. I put all the pictures of my childhood in a box and carried it everywhere I go. To school, to an island during vacation and anywhere that required me to pack a bag.

Unlike many children raised by a divorced single parent, I refused to go through life with an unspoken past. How will one carry on walking forward without the knowledge of the tested paths? With my childhood safely guarded in a plastic case cellotaped in a shoebox, nothing can ever overwrite my childhood. No tahfiz, no drunk chinaman, no addicted gambler, no, nothing can ever tarnish the fact that I was happy as a child.

But in truth, I was not always happy.

No, I was mostly miserable as a child. I had a normal but traumatising childhood. I won't go to further details but my childhood was shrouded with suicide attempts, shouting, fighting and a lot of unforgetable consequences of conflicts. Sometimes I think my brothers are more fortunate for not being able to remember their childhood because I remembered every minute of it. Every single burst of emotions, every scar on my body, everytime I forced myself to shut my ears and eyes is always, always a thought away.

I live with the pain of hiding my pain everyday. I realised today why people around me will turn a blind curb when talking about my past. It is painful to reminisce. It is better to keep the subject of my childhood a forced secret. I myself never attempted to properly bind all the old photos in an album. Instead, the photographs are stacked, only revealing a smiling facade; an indication of happiness inconceivable to me.

I know this seems unfair but the only way for this pain turn to a thing of the past is to have both my parents reconcile their differences and stop fighting. I want to sit with them in the same room and ask them why they acted the way they did after the divorce. Why couldn't they settle their difference for my sake? Why?

Why can't they just let me be happy?

The End of World

I realised how fragile we are as human beings after watching 2012.

I define myself by the people I acquainted myself with, which can be less than a thousand people. And yet when I stroll along a shopping complex, I always feel that I'm unique and my uniqueness is worth noting. Of course I don't dress weird or act a certain way to get attention, but a healthy dose of self esteem dictates that I feel a little bit special about myself. This is a delusion that makes me, or you, or anyone else feel a tinge of exclusion. To be comfortably isolated makes up for the reality of my anonymity.

But when disaster strikes, who am I to the eyes of others? I am just an obstacle, another mouth to feed, another body to sustain.

When disaster strikes, will I have enough means to escape and live to see tomorrow? If there is a special selection of people to survive earth when let's say 2 million people are chosen to board a gigantic arc, (like in the movie 2012) will I qualify to get in?

This is not an emotional response to another disaster movie, 2012 is a reality check for me. How will I fare when the best of minds and hands are rounded up for survival? I'm nothing. I'm no one!

From the minute I left the cinema hall, I felt that for me to survive, I've to be best in whatever I choose to do. I want to be the one of the 2 million chosen ones, that saving my life will do justice to the rest of the dying (or dead) human race.

Okay, maybe I'm being stupid for taking this movie seriously but think about it.... think about it for a moment and make a significant change of lifestyle. If life as we know ends in 2 years, what should you be doing now?

Competition

It's the last Friday the 13th today. Whether or not it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, I'm anticipating a bout of frustration today.

So what better way to lighten up this rather grim day than to over analyse things around me?

P1 Wimax and Streamyx are figthing it all in their advertisments nowadays. P1 is asking you to potong. Streamyx tells you to not trust a beginner with a P probation sticker. Whatever it is, both companies are fighting to get you to use their product which is the internet. One is offering a wireless service and the other sticks to the traditional cables.

I was in Subang Parade a few days ago and I saw a rather weird printed advertisment:

The midget scale carboard advertises suppliments that can make you lose weight and not look like an apple or a pear. Nothing weird there right?

But a stone throw away, there's a fruit stall.

Weird isn't it? Was the motivation of using fruits as representations of fat people a geographical response? Or was it just coincidental?