Ordinary Days (Briefly Celebrated)

It's been a really chatty day, after a really thoughtful week, after a supremely noisy year.

With regards to the day, I've engaged with staff on the cadences of our work, and on the geometries of the presentation of our work to our audience ("schedules" and "retail merchandising"). I've engaged with customers on the history of our product, and the internal challenges that we face. I've engaged with suppliers on the physical variables which determine the quality of our receivables, literally questioning the tactics which we employ to address changes in the weather on the days in which we cook some of our products (and I wonder if, "on the days in which," is grammatically sound). I have spoken with four women, one is a close friend, one only wants casual conversation, another is reticent, and another exchanges with me the details of our habits in masturbation. And this is just one day. One, casual, day - during which books were kept, and marketing collaterals reviewed / recycled / reproduced, and the peristalsis-pump of caustic-soda-laced liquids was repaired, and the toilet was cleaned, and the coaching of toilet cleaning was enacted. And surely I have missed the lesser half of it - I ate fish two, maybe three times, today. It is difficult to remember, when the mind has optimised away the details from one's eating at the same three or four shops every day over three-some years. More conversations from the day that passed: a passing comment on hegemony of China and the port of Kenya, a view on the halalness of usury earned on overnight swaps from forex brokers, rumours on the proceedings of our monarchs. One, foolish, ordinary, day. Mostly, I work alone. With each individual above, I speak only of the domains relevant to them. Few of the individuals I meet daily,share more than two or three of my interests above.

I think back across the span of a week. I have been concerned with the proceedings of my nation's public policies (who hasn't). I am reminded of why old men spend all day reading the newspapers (as I now have the mundane responsibilities of an old man, who cannot go anywhere, or do any work, beyond the compound of a small farm which is tilled for others). I have wondered if I am under-, or over-reacting, to the criticisms of reactors to political movements such as #metoo, that those reactors are over-reacting because they are defensively in jeopardy. I have no qualms listing out my questionable behaviours, as I do not by myself find them questionable - only acknowledging that others would not find them easy to accept. I have inseminated others without intending to, and engaged with them in the administration of therapies for the avoidance of implantation; I have offered a hand to those who I perceived to seek comfort, regardless of age; I have mocked young people; I have spoken endlessly until told not to speak; I have spoken endlessly until prevented from speaking, without being told not to speak (very often, in fact); yet I find these to be ordinary affairs in the world, common among human beings. Yet people, many people I meet, are ashamed to discuss such things. Their timidity offends my temerity, and the offense is welcome. But timidity is rarely welcoming of offense. My peers fear to lose their political clout - fear of losing jobs and other access to resources, fear of losing acceptance with societies, fear of losing citizenship, fear of losing friends and family - these fears are ordinary. And ordinary is not enviable, so it has been years since I decided not to retain such attachments.

But how does that play out over months? Well, let us not go there just yet... perhaps soon, it will be time for bed, and another day. Yet another, ordinary day.

When I ended college thirteen years ago, I had spent over 98% of 45 months within a single square mile. Over the past 36 months, I have spent over 98% of my time within a-hundred-meters-squared. It looks like I'm on track to one day spending a few years in a cell, and after that, a few more years locked into this body on bed... haha. Who knows what the future holds? Every ordinary day is already a stride away from extraordinary places.

2018 Recap of Views Expressed

2018 Recap of Views Expressed

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Notes on The Virtues of Apathy

* #Undirosak: You (are) Overachievers - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/01/undirosak-you-overachievers.html

* Letter to an ambitious lover - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/04/epistle-to-disenchanted.html

* Libraries as instruments of hegemony - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/06/libraries-and-hegemony.html

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Notes on Education / Malaysian Public Policy

* How to discuss education policies at the level of a nationstate - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/05/how-to-discuss-education-public-policy.html
* * Supplementary anecdotes - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/06/my-late-submission-to-committee-for.html

* (observatory) Maszlee's first major tango with angry students - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/09/maszlees-meeting-with-students-on-iium.html

* Civics education - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/09/civics-education-in-malaysia.html

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Notes on Economics / Labour / Malaysian Public Policy

* Leadership is the co-opting of those with lesser will - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/03/leadership.html

* I want more taxes - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/04/rimmed-potatoes.html

* Tax breaks for the young are a macro-economic lever, if youth expenditure is wise (big if) - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/05/26-year-olds-tax-break-strange.html

* Immigrants are building Malaysia without due credit - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/11/dear-kula-thanks-for-hitting-news.html

* * Immigration policy in Malaysia - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/06/immigration-in-new-malaysia.html

* * On the futility of raising wages without strategic border controls - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/09/on-putrajaya-messaging-that-upskilling.html

* * Malaysians are too competitive - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/10/malaysian-citizens-are-too-competitive.html

* Notes on some housing debt startup - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/11/fundmyhome-reflections.html

* automation of retail services - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/11/on-automation-of-labours.html

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Notes on Racial Politics

* Bumiputera Rights are Not the Enemy (bad public policy is the enemy) - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/05/bumiputera-rights-are-not-enemy.html

* Powers of the Agong - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/05/wip-incomplete-list-of-constitutional.html

* (discuss!) We should just get rid of English from the Laws of Malaysia - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/06/official-languages-of-law-in-malaysia.html

* On the application of virtual signalling as a branding strategy in wars against a tyrannical majority - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/07/letter-rhetoric-vs-civil-liberties.html

* Mathathir and Article 153 - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/11/from-conversation-analysing-article-153.html

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Notes on Psychology

* Using MBTI as an approach to a formal framework for modelling minds - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/06/concepts-mbti-vs-computation.html

* What hiring managers are looking for when they ask about confrontation - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/10/do-you-handle-confrontation-interview.html

* Crime as a public health concern - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/11/letter-to-editor-reflecting-on.html

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Notes on Sexual and Gendered Politics

* the formal language of rape - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/10/helping-friends-analyse-rape-rape.html

* improved whistleblower protocols would be nice - https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/12/letter-we-can-improve-regulations-for.html

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Miscellaneous Journals

* https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/01/yawn-34.html
* https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/03/yawn-35.html
* https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/05/yawn-36.html
* https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/06/yawn-37.html
* https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/07/yawn-38.html
* https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/08/yawn-39.html
* https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/09/yawn-40.html
* https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/09/yawn-41.html
* https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/11/yawn-42.html
* https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/12/yawn-43.html
* https://sextechandmergers.blogspot.com/2018/12/yawn-44.html