Life, Liberty, and other trivial pursuits
Walski tries yet another writing platform he doesn't have time for...
I suppose it was just a matter of time that I began using Substack. Yes, I have a blog (or at least Walski does). Yes, I have a business website… for business. And I even have a Medium account. Not forgetting, my page on Academia.edu, a repository of stuff I’ve written for (or related to) the art business I co-run, but not published online per se.
And now, I’m also on Substack.
So, like the rest of the world is probably asking, I ask myself, “Why?”
The truth is that I have a lot on my mind, but with too many things to do, and too many other distractions when I’m not doing those too many things, for my thoughts to get organized, and published.
myAsylum, both the original and the reboot, tends to be me rambling a lot as Walski. Written in the third person. Which, in all honesty, doesn’t lend any kind of credibility to what I pen. It seemed like a grand idea when I started writing that way, back in 2006, but it now seems caricaturish.
Be that as it may, this Substack account is intended for more specific topical commentaries, namely: politics, policy, and religion. Without (much) ranting. And while we live in a borderless world when it comes to thoughts and online travels, the commentaries will be primarily about Malaysia.
I was born in this country, and excluding an eight-year period between 1982 and 1990, Malaysia is where I’ve lived most of my life. In comparison to most other Malaysians, I’ve traveled fairly extensively abroad, and have lived for a non-trivial amount of time elsewhere.
But more than that, I observe and learn (or try to) from those observations.
No, I’m nowhere near unique in that respect, but increasingly I find commentaries on social media that indicate to me many Malaysians have a narrowing worldview; as if Malaysia exists in a vacuum, and that we’re somehow immune from experiencing the screw ups of other nations if similar paths those nations tread are followed suit by us.
I know what I plan to write will never change minds. Neither individually nor en masse. But it is my hope that at the very least folks pause and think objectively about the ideas presented. Not something easy, I’ll admit - much of what I see stated online these days indicate strong personal biases and indoctrinated thoughts. Plus, the tendency to not look at things from a broader perspective.
I guess we’ll see…
At this juncture, I’m thinking what I plan to published here will focus more on how we move forward, and less about how we got here. Much has been written by too many folks about that (me included). Plus, I’ll likely talk more about that on the other platforms I write/blog on, as opposed to here.
In any case, that’s the plan. I’ll try not to deviate too much from it.
One of the things I plan to talk about, by the way, is about ‘Liberty’. Which, like ‘progressive’ and ‘liberal’, has become almost a dirty word for many Malaysians of the conservative persuasion. If you’ve been observant, you’ll have noticed how Malaysia has become more and more conservative in the past decade or so, and that the conservative narratives of nationhood are gaining traction, particularly among the youth of today.
It’s this idea of life without liberty being the ideal way of existence, that your every move policed and vetted for “compliance” and “acceptability” to ever constricting standards.
We’ll delve into this a bit more in the coming postings, God-willing, but allow me to leave you with this simple question: Is that actually an attractive proposition of how life should be?