A friend of mine said if you want to be happy, turn off the news. Don't read the newspapers. Just mind your own business. Then you will be happy.
"You mean ignorance is bliss right?" I asked him.
"Yes, yes." was the reply. "What's the point of reading all this nonsense. Make you angry only. You worry oso nothing change, don't worry oso nothing change. Better watch cartoons leh."
"Oh ya, definitely!" I agreed. "Actually I also want to make dono about my Tenaga bill, my phone bill, all that. Lagi happy right?"
"Aiya don't be like that lar... bad things we don't see lar... nice things we see lar..."
"But my bills aren't nice things," I said, "If I ignore them I kena. So how?"
"Aiya give up lah talking to you!" he said with a laugh.
Of course I know exactly what my friend meant and I agree with him. Its not a bad idea to be choosy about what we see. Thinking, pondering, imagining, these are luxuries for people struggling to keep body and soul together. They change nothing and bring you ulcers some more.
Yet very often, people who recommend ignorance are anything but ignorant. Just ask any of them. They know which leader said what, who's caught up in the latest scandal, and what's wrong with the country in great detail. You really want ignorance? Try the guy in the kampung with a cangkul tied to his back and cycles to his vegetable patch to "kais pagi makan pagi kais petang makan petang" (live from hand to mouth.)
Wait, I think I just described me. Sorry.
No, seriously, do you know why ignorance is easy to say but hard to do? Our intense curiosity. We are like cats, our senses always on the alert for something. Its in our nature. Some guy in the coffee shop reads the newspaper. You pass by and spot the headlines "Harga barang naik 20%!" splashed on the front cover. Now tell me honestly you can walk by and not wonder what's that all about?
The information age has a habit of smacking our foreheads with the news, whether we want it or not.
So how?
Well, if you can't avoid it, learn to deal with it and here is my antidote against the daily swirl of nauseating news while maintaining my cheeriness. Just two things. First, I tell myself that nothing is forever. Bad things don't last. Good things don't last either. Second, I'm 20 years away from reaching the end of the line. That average life-expectancy line. I'll be gone before our country hits rock bottom.
That second one might sound like a cop-out but unless someone can tell me how to avoid death by old age, I have to live with it. Personally I think in its current course, the country will remain like this for another 30-40 years before a truly different wind blows. I shall miss the boat so to speak but that's okay. I'll be sure to watch the comedy from a safe distance.
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