Twitter musings for my birthday - aspirations for a nation | Image by author (Walski69)

On the eve of my 49th birthday a couple of weeks ago, my wife threw me a surprise party at a friend’s place. Later that evening, unable to sleep, I tweeted some thoughts about the evening, relating to an ideal: what I’d like for this nation to have.

These are those thoughts. In keeping with the spirit of Twitter, I present them to you as a numbered list, more or less how they were originally tweeted.

Twitter musings for my birthday - aspirations for a nation | Image by author (Walski69)

(1) Tonight, my lovely wife orchestrated a birthday party, in the company of some very awesome friends

(2) It will remain memorable for many reasons – but the most awesome thing was the company. It was a microcosm of Malaysia gathered

(3) And by that, there were folks of every walk of life, and across the political gulf that we see as a “divide”

(4) Despite the differences, we all had one very important thing in common – we were FRIENDS. In one room was the ideal Malaysia

(5) A Malaysia where we may have many differences of how we see the world, and what we hope will be. But regardless, we’re one

(6) Granted it was a group of close friends. But we did not let our differences come between, though we talked about differences

(7) Despite the differences, there was a more important bond between us – one forged on friendship

(8) And that’s the Malaysia I yearn for. Disagreement on ideas and points of view, but without hate and vitriol

(9) And as I cut my birthday cake, after blowing out the single candle, that was my exact wish

(10) We’ve come a long way in our collective being as a nation, and yet it’s easier to see difference rather than commonality

(11) Maybe it’s because we’ve been conditioned to differentiate rather than associate. Conditioned to make politics the axis of our being

(12) But the choice to allow ourselves to be conditioned is just that: a choice. Maybe not a conscious choice, but a choice nonetheless

(13) The point is that we can choose to let politics be the axis around which we revolve, or we can choose for it not to be

(14) As Malaysians, we have more important commonalities other than ethnicity and political viewpoints. Food, for example, is one

(15) Personally the secret to getting along is to ACCEPT that every individual will be different. We are, after all, human, not bees

(16) When it comes to a juncture where ideas and ideals come to a deadlock, agree to disagree. Then move on. With food, preferably

(17) Call it midlife crisis, or what have you, life is just too short to harbor hate over difference of opinion and political ideals

(18) Hate is not a nice thing to harbor. Been there, done that, and damned near gave me gastric ulcers. Just not worth it

(19) So, back to this evening – what was the one glue that brought us together? Friendship. And cake. But mostly friendship

(20) Friendship across ethnic backgrounds, across political and spiritual beliefs. It’s achievable if we want it to be. But only IF

 

The author is the real-world person behind the online presence named Walski69, and is many things to many people. Among other things, he is an industrial process/safety automation professional who now...

2 replies on “#49thots: Twitter musings on my 49th birthday”

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