On Demons Behind Wheels, Under the Skin

The holidays are here.  I think it has been four weeks since the last exam and semester, which to my great relief I have passed.

One year of undergraduate medical studies to go mates !!

The prospect of working though has placed itself in a love-hate relationship spot in my heart. I love the student life and the do-everything-without-responsibility part of it but the 'everything' don’t really happen that often. I actually want to practice medicine. Its something I really look forward to doing. 

Since the four weeks of holidays in Malaysia, I have been occupied with the waiting task of a chauffeur and inevitably, the accompanying joys and pains of the job. A scene that has managed to replay itself on my windshield and side view mirrors, sadly is that of horrific driving attitudes of our fellow motorists.

Need I delve into the details of what I call 'horrific driving attitudes' and share it to all of you my respectable and very honorable readers and drivers ? I think not. If you live in urban Malaysia, you will have at any time of your life experienced first hand the swerving, butting in and the confused and confusing usage of road marker lines and indicator lights by our drivers.

Once I was stuck in a traffic  jam for 90 minutes during my adventure to pick up dear mummy from her office which is around three to five kilometers away from home. In angst and fury, I fully attributed the lengthy drive to the overwhelmingly numerous attempts of motorists who  were cutting the queues and my weak heart, full of anger eventually got tired of trying to calm myself down and putting on a fake smile and being optimistic. I didn’t really see that other things may have caused a longer than usual delay in traffic, I just firmly believed that these queue cutters were the sole reasons. And every time I turned to see the faces of these drivers, who have mastered the art of wearing the mask of indifference, I would see that these drivers are chinese, or indian, or female, or a sheikh with  a kopiah or sometimes a turban on. Seeding from this conviction and observation was then a solipsistic attitude during the final part of me being stuck in the traffic jam. Namely the over zealous acts of not letting others cut my queue, not even caring if their wives were giving birth in the car and they needed to cut the queue to get to the hospital ASAP and triggering a thought slightly tarnished with elements of racism.  Not only that, I also got quite verbal in the car, exclaiming loudly about my disappointment (using not the most appropriate of words, I must admit) towards the driving sheikhs who should by all means set a good example to other muslims and non muslims driving on the roads, and I also nearly slipped out a few curses in the presence of dear mummy who would've had the most stressful time of listening to his dear sonny saying things 'like that' after a stressful day at the office.   

Afterw
ards, finally free from the traffic jam, at  home, several things popped into my mind concerning the situation.

Firstly is the question of cause and effect. I with all my heart believe that the majority of malaysian drivers want to enjoy peaceful and easy going traffic. And I undoubtedly believe that everyone want to get to their homes in one piece. However the actions of our motorists depict the polar opposite of my assumptions.  What is the cause? Are we truly just a bunch of self centred people who couldn’t care less about the feelings of others or are circumstances made real by a tiny percentage of our people push us to become the self centred people we never want to be?  I believe for the majority of us, the latter case is true. Its not that we'd rather drive around selfishly, we just had to do so because otherwise, we'll never get to our destination and the people behind us will start swearing and throwing fists in the air hoping that upon seeing their frustration,  our fearful souls will find the courage to butt in the queue and behave unruly. So when would the cycle stop? Do we, after reading this and finding enough justification to finally act appropriately on the roads, start to practice courteous driving, alien to the norms of malaysian traffic? Or do we simply say, its impossible? Do we still go with the notion (certainly in this case) that a change triggered by one would produce an effect big enough?  Mind you, its not that I havent tried being nice and ideal on the roads. Its just that my tired soul has countless times been disappointed by my favors to the motorists unheeded and even scorned upon and the temptation to do the opposite is so mighty and the ease too appealing, like a drug addict, I have repeatedly given up.

Secondly, I also noticed how anger clouds your eyes, plugs your ears and stains your mouth and head with too much ease and swiftness. And how it turns an originally pleasant task into one that is unbearable and sinful.  As of what happened to me, as im sure has happened to many of us, anger produces so much evil. It clouds us from the truth, making us charge like senseless boars, releases from within us demons that are shameful and fearful, it complicates matters that are originally simple, it gives birth to fear and hatred and it explodes in a chain reaction, affecting consequently more and more people with fearless speed. Overcoming anger and winning over it indeed takes mountain loads of effort and certainly isn't easy. I used to just nod in silent approval and comprehension when someone reminds me about the saying of the Prophet (pbuh):

The strong man is not he who is a good wrestler, but he who is able to control himself in times of anger

 As not many things angered me during those days, I was much too happy to ascertain that saying and attribute to myself this delusional title of 'Mr Strong'. Little did I know that upon going out of school and engaging in the community where people were behaving outside of school bound social rules  would that self given title be stripped off me with much justice and sense.  

Thirdly…

Oh my...Ive lost my train of thought~ hmmmm….~ well I guess two are aplenty. At least for me.  You just wont believe how long it took me to finish this post, it must have approached 2 weeks now!! (note the changing tones at different parts of the post)  In between my sisters wedding function and all the jobs of being the secretary, driver, transporter, diplomat and trash man, this is what I can come up with so far. Partly to fill in the long silence of my blog which, as of a month ago just reached 3000 hits!! *ok sad and jakun* and partly to vent out my anger towards malaysian traffic.

As an uncle who worked with underprivileged kids once told me during a meeting, be a thermostat, not just a thermometer. Don’t just talk about the problems at hand and rant about it, make a difference so you can control your environment and solve the problems you see. So how do I propose we alleviate, if not solve our problems concerning Malaysian traffic? Well I, as a successful and charismatic interview candidate would ever so confidently articulate, believe that education would solve many if not all the problems we face. I firmly believe that if people are educated about religious  and moral values, this traffic issue can be solved. How ? Why…? say you? Well its not that hard to imagine, really.

People who are educated and practice their religious demands (this should certainly be the case for Muslims at the very least and lets put aside the turban wearing 'sheikhs' that I mentioned, I'm quite optimistic that sheikhs in other places are not like that…well not really…but that’s why they say you can't judge a person by what they are wearing…right?) should be the most tolerant of peoples and the most patient of people and the most kind of people. People who adhere to rules and people who are concerned about safety, of others and themselves.

My equation then spells: Religious and moral conscience = tolerance + patience + kindness = better roads in Malaysia!  

And possibly many other issues too. Am I then also suggesting that Malaysian drivers lack religious and moral values? To an extent, yes. But this humble and ignorant soul should not point to others, as four of his fingers would point back at him, but still…~!!

Do you intend to teach us about our own religion? You mangy scoundrel of insignificant heritage and social status and wealth, studying in some land where the religion is not the official religion? Who is not even studying the faith? Who is learning medicine from those Godless bunch of infidels????

Ehem2…~ Well…not that I propose that we do not have knowledge of the religion, but from what I see, it seems that while we may have an abundance of religious knowledge, whatever we have in our brain isn't being expressed in our hearts and our limbs. We don’t live it, we just put it inside just in case we needed to debate, gossip about and judge another person or comment on an issue. What use is knowledge if no action springs from it? What use is pouring water onto a dead tree? 

On the issue of anger, the Prophet (pbuh) has commented plenty of times on this menacing emotion. He told us: just don’t be angry. He told us that if you were angry and were standing, you should sit down, if you were still angry, then lie down. And he has given us so many advices about anger management. What's left is to remember and practice them. I remembered a time when I was furious at a teacher for some funny reason and I was so angry, my friends told me my ears went traffic light red. I remembered at the time thinking about this advice, but being a school boy restricted of his rights to stand or sit as he wishes, I couldn’t sit down at the time, we were at the morning assembly. So I haven't the chance to consciously try this yet (teehee...~), but I guess I'll have a lot of chances to do so when I start working soon.

And still, its religion that teaches us how to handle this. Its basic. No need for expensive anger management classes, or counseling, or therapies. Just follow what your religion has taught you (again, an oversimplification, but still…) .   Our religion has covered our needs, from the very start of our life, until the end of it, whenever that may be. 

Call me an idealist, but I believe, I truly believe, that the day the amount people who are religious and God conscious exceeds that of not, would be the day when so many problems in our world will meet their end.

Your humble every day simpleton

Azfar

p.s.: Two weeks before the start of the new academic year. So many plans are in mind for this final leg of the run. I pray things will turn out for the best =)