The E-mail

The e-mail is so much a part of getting things done now, so much so, it is the necessary gatekeeper for information to be requested and information to be provided. Nowadays, it is not sufficient to just meet with the specific person who holds the information. Information can only be provided when an e-mail is forwarded, signifying a formal request even though the person is sitting next to me. I must be from the old school where words will just suffice to instigate an informative response. I feel like a corporate hillbilly now. Times have changed. I wonder where I can find another company which does not need the e-mail correspondence. The e-mail is an added bureaucracy. FOS at most times.

It rains outside. A second time, this week in Kuala Lumpur. The rain will help to reduce the prevalent dustiness in the air. It does not matter that much to me. I go in and out of air-conditined spaces. The only negative thing is its effect on vehicular traffic movement. KL roads are like clogged intestines during and after a downpour. I cannot really tell where the rectum is actually. I have always avoided peak traffic hour but yesterday, I had accidentally dropped my keys at the PJ Secret Recipe. Silently brooding, my wife (on her birthday) had to drive me to PJ through the thick traffic and back again to Bangsar through the thick traffic. It was no fun for me either when Secret Recipe still registers a telephone nuber which is no longer valid. It was no fun to walk from the office to Bukit Pantai, amidst the dirt and dust and the uncomfortable heat. It was the repercussion from a shallow pocket and a low sofa chair. I had mulled over how not to lose the keys. Hang around neck, insert in hankerchief, hang on chain to trousers and even hang on those places that only see little of the day. What to do. Life is like that. Sometimes we lose things and we get them back and sometimes we don't. I don't mind losing the bad ones, though.

On birthdays and the parting of ways

Today is my wife's birthday and  I was the fiftieth person (so she said) to have wished her a happy birthday. I was not late on the day but rather on the hour. As for myself, I frown on my own birthday. If immortality is what I seek, then I would not care much about the birthdays. However, as it is, we are all mortals and so, the birthday is like the milestone on the perilious journey towards the end. I wonder if everyone else in the world look forward to retirement and old age. Some of course, did not make it and falter along the way, either from cancer, accidents, murder, war or famine. Whatever it is, a birthday is a rejoice of one's entry into the world. I don't remember if I had smiled on coming out from my mother. But my parents insisted that as a baby I was quiet and brooding and minded my own business. I am still like that, more or less. Hmmm..

Speaking of retirement, this year marks the twentieth year of my career in this company. It has been that long. But today,  I will commence to initiate my exit. That will be the milestone of event that I have been waiting for, for the past one year. The bird has to go free, the horse brought out to pasture. Of course, there can be many words to describe it. I am elated. I see the open door, and outside it, the expansive plain with some hills over yonder, with birds flying against the blue sky. I see nothing else.