The Typical Malay

If I were to be asked "Why do think the phrase 'men are trash' is so popular nowadays?", my answer would be this: It is the combination of known dangers that male criminals commit towards women and the unknown but widely believed idea that men in general are constantly being both direct and indirect enablers of their poor-behaving companions. Do I believe that the phrase carries some semblance of truth and sensibility? Yes, I do. I feel the same way about the phrase " teach men not to rape ". I believe there are good reasons why people utter these phrases and why they believe it should be uttered. At the same time, I believe both of these phrases are oversimplifications of real and difficult problems that can only be solved if we are willing to talk about them seriously and not reduce them to easily-uttered phrases. In my opinion, the sensible person (regardless of their gender) will never use these phrases seriously. Primarily because I believe the us...

I have always regarded politics as a system of two sides: The Game and The Tool. The Game is played by those who would derive personal benefit from the system. While politics as The Tool is usable by anyone (smart enough) to create change at the smallest to the highest levels of any societal aspect. As voting day nears, players of The Game become desperate. They become less tactful and nuanced. Because winners of The Game are those who will have the greatest control over The Tool. And if used well, The Tool is a generous source of wealth and power. As an average Joe who will be voting for the first time, I am neither a player of The Game nor do I see myself using The Tool for anyone's benefit except my own but even then, I don't know how it works. For the past few years, I have observed the local political scene as how I would watch an honest stand-up comedian. There are truthful tragedies here and there but most of the time, it's simply a performance filled with entert...

Confidence is one those traits that is universally regarded as good, if not outright necessary, in the development of one's personality. It represents this overarching ability that influences many other attributes that we develop. If you're a person inclined towards making or performing some type of art, confidence helps you face an audience and more importantly, it helps you handle any undesirable responses from the audience. You don't need confidence for handling positive responses. For that, you'd require grace and maybe a bit of caution. When you go for an interview, confidence helps you make eye contact with the interviewers and gives you the strength to speak clearly. When the interviewers ask you tough questions, its confidence that helps you believe your answers are going to be adequate thus giving you the strength to verbalise them. By establishing this consensus that confidence is vital to the success, or rather the journey towards the success of a person, ...

If we are to go along with the belief that God is omniscient, that God is all-knowing, then the reasons for praying cannot be maintained as simple appeasements for the sake of getting what we want or to avoid being inflicted with things we don't want. If God already knows what we desire and what we deem undesirable, then we shouldn't pray as if God must be informed of such things. So if we don't pray to tell God our wishlist, why do we do it? It's also worth bearing in mind that if God is all-knowing, then God already knows whether or not we shall receive what we pray for. However, that does bring us into the territory of whether fate or destiny are fixed or malleable concepts and that isn't a topic I have the confidence to write about. The point here isn't that whether or not prayer makes a difference (also another topic I'm not ready to write about) but it's to find out how we benefit from the very real and very physical act prayer. The keyword here ...

We all want to be genuine. To embrace that idea of "being unforgivably yourself". Mind you, that notion is not supposed to be conflated with "accepting yourself as you are" which is very defeatist and to consider defeatism as a viable display of genuine self is quite sad. To be unforgivably yourself per se is to recognise the positives and negatives of your being and to manipulate those factors in an effort to move towards the things you want in life. I believe that is what it means to be genuine. There are multiple facets that can be discussed when speaking of being genuine but there is one aspect that I believe is often overlooked and so it bears the potential of surprising and demotivating people when it finally hits them during their attempts to become genuine. Everything that we work towards is akin to an enterprise and thus we wish to derive some form of profit. A successful enterprise can be simplified to the phrase of "big profit, little loss" an...

"I want someone capable of opening up. A man unafraid to show his emotions and be vulnerable." It seems that many women are prone to saying things similar to the above statement and I observe that most young men find it difficult to ascertain what is truly being conveyed. I consider this to be one of those situations where men must learn to read between the lines and understand the language of women. Of course, I'm not an expert on women nor do I comprehend their minds that well (and that is fine) but I have learnt a thing or two from my own experience interacting with them. On a general note, women prefer strong men. Physical strength is definitely a desirable trait but the word "strong" in this context is also applied mentally and emotionally. Any man who easily breaks down in the face of challenges and hardships is a very unattractive man. A woman will find it hard to share her problems with you if you show that you're being overwhelmed by your own pr...