The houses we live in

I was driving around with a friend a few weeks ago and we were going around one of KL's more affluent areas called Bangsar just looking at pretty houses. Normally I can't stand any "affluent" area in KL, I find them completely charmless, pretentious and over the top. If houses in KL could speak, they'd be speaking in those annoying put on American accents and any conversation with these talking houses would be a series of humble brags about how its doors were designed by Gucci in Italy just because they were #blessed. But Bangsar is a different story. Bangsar is full of tiny houses tucked away in quiet little streets and they usually look like nothing but give it a couple of seconds and slowly you begin to realize the beautifully subtle details like vines growing on the fences and a bookshelf by the window that extends from floor to ceiling. But the downside of house-watching in the middle of the night is that you run the risk of looking like a stalker or criminal then realize that someone in that house is probably watching you and is contemplating calling the police. So you move on to the next house.

I think it's entirely true that the way houses look is an extension or a reflection of the people living in it and the start of this "reflection" starts when you try to develop into your own person. When I was a teenager, my room was exactly like me. My mother is a very clean person and would physically ache upon the sight of messiness so there was never clothes on the floor or an untidy desk. I simply wasn't allowed that privilege. Neither was I allowed to have posters on the wall because apparently I would damage the paint work so my walls were pristine as well. But, once you opened up my cupboard doors, you were faced with a mad collage of my favorite bands, actors (I was crazy about Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortensen) and weird so-called cool indie patterns I'd find in random magazines that I thought were cool and edgy. My clothes weren't allowed to be thrown on the floor so obviously my cupboard was never organized. The teenage mess instinct in me had to be let out somewhere, so instead of neat folded piles, I was faced with a mountain of clothes that I'd pick apart everyday to decide what to wear. I didn't mind at all. It was the same with my work desk. Sure, all my papers were put away into cute little boxes and files but inside those boxes and files was a tragic mess. My drawers were a nightmare of discarded worksheets, exercise books and I'd sift through that nightmare every night to find that single sheet of homework I'd need for the next day at school. So in essence, my teenage room was exactly like teenage me - controlled chaos. Organized, clean and presentable on the outside, thanks to an external force (aka my mother) but complete madness and disarray on the inside (aka the true me).

So fast forward to the present where I am house-snooping and wondering what the people who live in these beautiful houses were like. One house had a window large enough to show off its book shelf that was 2 storey's tall (ie from ceiling of the first level to floor of the ground level). I was in love. So many thoughts were running through my mind like, "Hey there, owner of beautiful house with dream library. What do you have there on that divine piece of architecture? The full Harry Potter set? The works of Homer and Shakespeare? Encyclopedias? Yo man, don't even hide if you've got the whole 50 Shades of Grey trilogy because it doesn't matter. All that matters is how wonderful it must be to come back to a beautiful house with all those books in your own comfort. What else do you like? What colors exist in that beautiful space? Do you have a garden or are you like me and plants just wither and die under your care?". The monologue was endless and continued from house to house.

Some of the houses were open enough for me to catch a quick glimpse of the people living inside them and thinking back,  I've realised that it's a strange thing to watch someone else live their everyday life. Isn't it weird that while you have your own thoughts and experiences and dreams, someone else has their own thoughts, experiences and dreams that are entirely different from yours. There is an entire monologue going on in their heads that is separate from yours. They see the world through a pair of eyes just like yours and yet, the things you both see are different. That person is sitting there on that couch that they are probably so used to sitting on and you are outside, watching them sit on that couch and thinking, "Hey, that looks comfy". Then I go back to my own couch in my own home that I am used to sitting on, living my own humdrum life giving it no second thought and I  remain acutely unaware that someone might just be watching me for just a minute thinking, "I wonder what it's like to be her. She looks really comfy in that space that she owns".

Again I think is a pretty solid conclusion about this strange life that we all live. On the outside, the things that we have and surround ourselves with seemingly reflect what we are on the inside. Some people keep books around, some people are tidy, some people only like the colours black and white but the things that led them to keep those books around or keep tidy or decorate with certain colours are all completely individual decisions made according to experiences and thoughts that we will never know of. But our own habits are made up of these similarly individual experiences and thoughts, and while we're so busy wondering about the lives of other people and how lovely it must be living in that space that they've created, there might be someone out there looking just as longingly into our lives wondering what it's like to live in ours.

Syria

Earlier this year, someone close to me who lives in Saudi Arabia told me something quite scary and somewhat unimaginable to me - one of the guys from his circle of friends, Ahmed (I changed his name) had disappeared and was not heard from at all. He had been gone for almost a month at that time. A few months later, they heard that Ahmed was seen in Turkey, had sold the family car he took and was presumably about to use the cash to get himself across the border to Syria. They feared the worst, thinking he had joined ISIS but were hopeful he would come to his senses and then come home safe. A few months after that, they found out that he did manage to get into Syria but was not involved in crackpot delusional ISIS but had joined the rebels to fight against the Syrian regime, against Bashar Al Assad. A few weeks ago, that someone close to me came back to KL. We had a fun week that was spent watching movies, eating a lot of food and just generally caught up on the time spent apart doing things that normal young adults do. Days before he was supposed to return home, he got news from home telling him that his friend Ahmed had been killed while fighting against this demon regime.

When he told me about what had happened to Ahmed, I was stunned and did not know how to react at all. This was foreign territory to me - how do you respond when you hear that someone close to someone you care about has not just died, but killed while fighting? Do you say sorry? Doesn't that sound a bit weak though? So do you reach out for a reassuring hug? What? I just stayed silent.

After a while, we were back to normal and continued our usual activities without a mention of Ahmed. But occasionally he would say things like, "I was really looking forward to him coming back home" and "I bet he must have kicked ass while he was out there", again throwing me into those unknown waters, not knowing how to react and hoping he'd go back to normal.  

Fast forward to the present, about 2 weeks after hearing about Ahmed. My friend has gone back to KSA, I'm here at home in KL. It's almost midnight, I am sitting on my living room floor with the TV playing in the background. I had a good dinner a few hours ago but my stomach has just started rumbling again and I was looking through the stories of my friends on Snapchat with my 64gb iPhone that my dad bought for me a month ago. I looked at my friends Stories and thought, "Ugh they're at a mamak shop having supper and they didn't invite me?". Then I watched Masterchef on the 30 or 40something inch TV we have in the living room in HD which only further reminded me of my rumbling tummy. I then head into the kitchen and get myself a giant bowl of cereal. I walk to the living room again and plonk myself back down onto my comfortable couch with an ample selection of big fluffy cushions. I grab my laptop and start scrolling through Twitter. I've got Star World playing in the background and the program has switched from Masterchef to Candidly Nicole. Nicole Richie has now apparently picked up online dating to help her friend find a partner. Nicole insists on tweaking her friends profile on the dating site because apparently "you won't get a man just by being completely yourself", to which her friend just replies with a stony stare. I think that is supposed to compute as funny in the viewers head.

At this point, I'm only half listening to Nicole's opinions because I found a link on Twitter depicting a timeline of the Syrian crisis that has just massively blown up since the pictures of the toddler washed up on a beach has spread across the internet. I click on it. It's a series of tweets by a Syrian activist who has been documenting the crisis from the 2011. Then I find another link to a YouTube video. It was a group of men who had found the body of another activist who had been killed. His larynx had been ripped out, the men around him were saying words like "Shaheed (martyr)" and "Allahu-akbar (God is great)", at which I realized I had tears in my eyes and I felt a little nauseous.

I look up at the TV and see that Candidly Nicole now has a bunch of frat boys who are playing that weird beer game where they do a handstand over a barrel while trying to chug down lots of beer until someone throws up. Everything in that show seems to deliberately show how wonderful it is to be American and rich. All the colors are so vivid and bright. Why is her garden so green? Why is that red bucket so brightly crimson? How is their sky so incredibly blue? I look around my house - at my comfortable couch with my ample selection of big fluffy cushions, my HD tv, my iPhone, this laptop I am staring at. I think about my mother sleeping soundly in her bed, safe in the knowledge that she is there and is alright and will wake up tomorrow safe in that same bed.

Then my thoughts switch back to Ahmed, who is my age and has been killed in a fight and to the dead activist who had his larynx ripped out and then I realized why I teared up. This issue is so real and is happening right this moment, as I type these words out. As I am sitting here in physical comfort on my couch, there is someone out there who is just like me and going through what seems like hell to me. No six degrees of separation between me and this crisis, even though it is happening half way across the globe. No distance or buffer anymore, no feeling of "it's just something on the news". This has affected someone that I know and care about which has subsequently affected me. Yet, here I am like many lucky others in this world, in my comfortable home with the world still safe for me. I am enjoying these privileges merely because I am allowed to. Because I am lucky. Because God has granted me this blessing of a roof over my head.

Why me? I don't know why. Why not them too? I don't know either. Allahu-akbar.

What do I do now? I remember that this life isn't about finding the perfect partner through online dating. The grass isn't always that TV green, sky isn't so bright hyper blue, that bucket isn't that red in real life. There are other things happening in real life that are terrible and unimaginable and cruel. You're just a little speck of life in this life of millions but someOne has chosen to bless you with this life of joy and comfort and stability. Some people like Ahmed may choose to leave all that and try to make a difference. But you are you on the other side of the world and all you can do is watch everything around you happen. You may wonder why such bad things happen and you may never find an answer to that. But you will always remember that you are one of the lucky ones and maybe you can do your part in just remembering that and being thankful. Being thankful means you are aware. Being aware means that maybe one day, you'll be able to take part in doing something about it.