Free or Freedom?

Today I am writing about something everyone is familiar with which would be the concept of freedom. What is freedom? It seems like in any cases there would be a lot of different concepts of freedom. Some might argue that living in this world we should have total freedom. But is that so? What would be the characteristics of freedom? Does freedom means that you could criticize every human that you came in contact with without feeling any kind of threat? Is that so? If that is the definitions of freedom, how about human values? Does both contradict each other to an extent that both could not eventually exist on the same plane?

Freedom can be defined as free will, the ability to choose, or to decide or to do something without constraints. The definition of constraints could be seen as restrictions. The question regarding freedom or free will had been a central issue since the beginning of philosophical thought. If referring to the basic concepts of freedom even democracy would not be in the same line with freedom. So why ask for total freedom?

Basically I had form a perspective of freedom since I was born into this world. During my childhood years, living in an Asian family, my parents were really strict. I learned how to cook and how to do all the houseworks when I was in my primary years. So does that count as freedom? Freedom to choose what I want to do? Freedom to not choose what my parents think would suit me in my future? So from my perspective and point of view, freedom for me is not something enjoyable nor fun to gasp to the concept. Let me give you an analogy. Imagine freedom as a white paper. You have free will to choose what you want to do with the piece of paper. You would draw what you want. Imagine the drawing fill with unlimited colours, this would be defined as total freedom. But than the drawing would not be neat or nice or cool etc. It would be random. So we used lines. Lines reffering to constraints or regulations. These regulations would always keep the drawings in line. These lines would make sure that the mistakes that we made with the colours are not too huge. Minimizing mistakes in general. From my perspectives, this would be the concept of freedom.

Freedom of speech, freedom to walk, freedom to think and voice out opinions; all have constraints tied to each one of them. So why do we call these as freedom if at first the concept of freedom is defined as without any constraints? Remember that everything we do, every actions that we took have consequences. These consequences form the basic constraints of our 'freedom'. These constraints in formal would be rules and regulations and it would be our responsibility to follow but we still have our freedom. We can voice out if the rules are not logical. That would be my basic understanding of freedom. We always took flying birds - flying freely to be adjusted with our concept of freedom. But even birds need to follow certain rules of the nature in order to fly.

So think about it. You might always think that you wanted so much of freedom that you forget to think that with freedom comes responsibility. In any cases you should not misuse freedom given to you. Remember about moral values or human values. We existed peacefully due to such values. So let's make both freedom and values on the same plane. Remember that you hold the full responsibility to shape the world. So use the freedom given wisely.

My Life In KTJ

Since i still got nothing personal in my blog, so this is going to be a very first personal post in my blog.

To those knowing me, im quite a boring kind of guy. I speak facts and dont know exactly how to communicate effectively. So lets cut the story short. My life in KTJ had opened my eyes in the sense that I need to mingle around. I need friends and I cant be dependent of my past existing friends. I too as a social being need friends if there is any problems. Actually there are lots of problems.

Let start with the beginning shall we. So when I first arrived I really didnt know what the hell am I doing here?? My dreams were all related to biology and chemistry but now I am learning accounting and economics!! WOW!! Economics was seriously weird for me. During my secondary years of joining debate, I hated so much of discussing these topics related to economics. But things get on pretty swiftly. I met a lot of interesting friends whom some I adore and some I hated to even mention it here. So let me share the ones that I like. Starting with Haziq. He is seriously funny. I mean his faces, his responses in class, his attitudes sometimes like you are watching some cartoon character out of the TVs. But he is seriously genius. He is really good with facts and numbers especially numbers and I am really glad that he is in my class. The others would be both Zoe and Sammy. Both of them are very nice to me. They got the same problems with me. Seriously economic classes are like trips to the wildlife. We can seriously see that Azril and Faisal were competing for male dominance around the class. But seriously both crap a lot in the class. And that is one of my biggest issue in the class. So annoying. Sometimes you wanted to try to focus to what Puan Sha is trying to explain in the class but you got totally annoyed that even opening your eyes would be difficult.

But history class would be a very quiet class. Hehehehehe... Love the classes so much. I meet up with a lot of new and interesting persons like Sya, Sarina, Mike, Edward and Jinho. Inclusive of Zoe. I always called her Zoey. Sorry, my bad. History is kinda a really tough subject but I kinda like it. I like history since I was a little kid. Hehehehehe... Seriously. I knew a lot of stuffs about egyptian gods and greek mythologies and I remember them well enough until now. History kinda like fascinates me. Like a child given a candy, history is like candy to me, the little child. But my problem in class would be speaking my thoughts out loud. Just imagine Jinho and Mike are both really good with their facts that if i spill anything is like comparing a mice to an elephant. The problem is that I was the mice. So I kinda like sit still and listen really carefully to every details that they had discussed in class. That is my way of learning. I entered KTJ around end of February and that is really2 late. I miss a lot of History classes and in order to catch up, everyday I wrote at least an essay. People say I am crazy but the efforts were tremendousy worth it. I got an A. Yup! But that would be another problem. I never expected that I would get better results than both Mike and Jinho. I wanted to cheer and shout like crazy people but I cant. I dont want to hurt anyone's feeling... Hurm.. At last, I just kept quiet as usual. But History was awesome. Seriously, Miss Tiow is really a great teacher. Minus the nagging she would be superb. She is like a factbook or something. Any arguments we throw at her, she rebut with facts and understanding that sometime beyond understanding of our capacity.

Maths... Hurm... Lots of works. Seriously. I work to my ass just to complete every single maths works given. And the annoying part is that it never ended. Everyday, piles of works would be dump on us. Whenever some of these fellas asked for less homeworks, Mr Dickman would gave us even more. Haiya... But I enjoyed being in his class. He is a really good maths teacher. When I first came into KTJ I always got probs with maths. He was there to guide and give me strength. I managed to finish my years in KTJ not only with maths but with Further Maths also. Thanks Sir! Stats would be one of my favourite classes. Why? I can beat Haziq in stats. Thats my niche. Hahahahahaahahahahahaha. But still, he is a brilliant maths student.

So that would be my life in KTJ. I meet a lot of awesome people like Azim, Haziq, Dhisy, Anisa Rahim, Fiza, Farrah, Izati, Thiru, Edward, Zoe, Sammy, and countless of interesting people that if I write everything about them all, I think I need more than a day to describe how awesome these guys were. Seriously, you guys are the BEST!!!!

BTN : Biro Tatanegara

Sebelum melangkah ke Kem Bina Negara, Meru, keadaan penat membuatkan saya agak blur atau blank maka saya tak boleh nak register sangat perasaan saya masa tiba untuk program BTN ni. Sebelum ke Kem Bina Negara ni macam-macam saya dengar dari rakan-rakan saya. Ada yang menyatakan BTN ni membosankan dan membuang masa la. Ada yang turut menyatakan yang BTN digunakan sebagai medan untuk menyebarkan ideologi politik. Dan apa yang saya dapat simpulkan hampir kesuluruhan rakan saya ni masing-masing belum pernah lagi pergi ke BTN. Maka saya dapat rumuskan sebenarnya ini hanyalah sekadar bahan perbualan langsung tidak berkaitan dengan BTN.

Jadi apakah sebanarnya BTN? Intipati program? Benarkah dakwaan bahawa BTN ini digunakan sebagai medan propaganda dan ideologi politik? Adakah benar khabar-khabar angin yang menyatakan BTN ini membosankan dan sebagainya? Jadi di dalam post ini saya akan mengupas apakah sebenarnya BTN dari perspektif saya dan beberapa rakan-rakan saya yang lain.

Pertama sekali perlulah diperbetulkan bahawa sesungguhnya BTN ini langsung tidak berkaitan dengan apa-apa parti politik dan langsung tidak berkaitan dengan medan penyebaran propaganda mahupun ideologi politik. Pada pendapat saya, saya dapat simpulkan sebenarnya BTN ini lebih kepada medan untuk menjelaskan dengan lebih jelas sebab-sebab rasional konflik yang berlaku kini dalam negara berdasarkan fakta yang jelas dan nyata yakni penjelasan melalui Perlembagaan Persekutuan. Jadi bagi sesetengah individu yang cuba memburukkan BTN fikirlah dengan akal yang waras bahawa sesungguhnya BTN bukanlah apa yang difikirkan.

Saya sebenarnya agak bersyukur dapat menyertai program ini. Walaupun pada awalnya saya boleh dikategorikan dalam kelompok paksa rela tapi beberapa persoalan yang bermain di fikiran dapat dijawab dengan menyertai program ini. Dan saya yakin hampir ke semua rakan-rakan saya yang lain juga bersetuju bahawa kami mendapat pelbagai input melalui program ini. Sekarang terlintas di fikiran saya. Perlembagaan Persekutuan merupakan perkara penting yang menentukan perjalanan negara kita. Tidak salah saya katakan bahawa Perlembagaan Persukutuan wajarlah di lihat sebagai kitab untuk pentadbiran dan urusan negara. Bak kata fasci2, undang2 tertinggi dalam negara. Namun dalam isu-isu dalam negara tak kiralah politik mahupun ekonomi, nampaknya seperti perlembagaan persekutuan telah diketepikan. Ada yang turut berani tampil melaungkan bahawa kontrak sosial tidak adil dan sebagainya tanpa mendalami erti sebenar setiap aspek dalam perlembagaan dan kontrak sosial.

Maka atas dasar itulah terlintas di pemikiran saya bahawa kita seolah2 sedang bergerak ke belakang. Minda kita tidak lagi mampu memikirkan perkara2 logikal dan rasional. Seperti tamadun Eropah bergerak ke zaman kegelapan, adakah kita ingin melihat masyarakat Malaysia kita bergerak ke arah yang sama. Ingat kita hanya sudah merdeka selama 52 tahun (belum 53 tahun lagi) dan kita telah dijajah lebih dari 400 tahun. Dan jika kita ingin melihat Malaysia maju ke hadapan kita perlulah ingat akan kejayaan kita mencapai kemerdekaan dan perlembagaan itu menjadi bukti. Kontrak sosial menunjukkan bagaimana kita boleh bertolak ansur antara satu sama lain. Dan itu dulu, 52 tahun yg dahulu. Zaman yang belum adanya internet, mahupun komputer di setiap rumah. Zaman di mana globalisasi belum wujud. Zaman di mana agak sukar untuk kita mengenali antara kaum. Berbeza dengan zaman kita yang sudah moden. Ada internet. Kenapa dahulunya kita boleh bersetuju dengan konsep kontrak sosial namun sekarang kita mempersoalkannya?

Ok nampaknya saya sudah terlari dari topik saya. Tapi inilah antara perbincangan2 yang saya hadapi dengan rakan2 saya di kem berkenaan. Saya bersetuju dengan rakan saya, Wei Jie bahawa BTN ini bukanlah hanya sebagai medan untuk brainwash tapi lebih kepada brain-opening, membuka minda dan mata kita untuk berfikir berdasarkan fakta bukan semata-mata berdasarkan situasi semasa. Saya juga ingin mengutarakan kepada pihak kerajaan, kita perlukan satu subjek penerapan atau pembelajaran Perlembagaan Persekutuan dan cara2 untuk memahminya. Jelas bahawa Perlembagaan Persekutuan itu penting dan perlu dipelajari dengan lebih teliti sejak dari kecil lagi bukan apabila kita pergi menghadiri kursus BTN semata-mata. Itu saja pendapat saya mengenai BTN. Walaupun agak membosankan sedikit dek kerana kelas dan sebagainya namun pengalaman saya di BTN amat berharga dan akan saya pegang pada apa yang telah dipelajari di sana.

My First Entry

It's kinda weird now that finally I have my own blog. One of my friend, Ahmad, he had asked me to build up my own blog. So here I am writing my first entry for the first time. Hope you guys dont mind me trashing into this more crowded world. So why is my blog title would be the dawn of the dark. Not to humour you Ahmad but mo to the condition of nowadays world. If we really look at the situations, most of them people would be in conflicts just because of stories. Stories which might not be the truth. In my world this such stories are more common as 'fitnah'. Whenever there are stories regarding certain conflicts, people would be excited of the stories, not at all trying to analyse or truly understand the stories or determine whether the stories are true or only lies. So here we are again back to the dark. So I conclude that this age or this generation would be the dawn of the dark...