A young man makes a lot of mistakes in his life. I am no exception. I stand firm by the opinions that have given in this blog, but still I feel a sense of regret over the manner of my expression. Anger and sarcasm have never been the nature of my soul. And yet there were times that I have used them as tools to attack certain issues and individuals (writers mostly). Looking back, I realize that my verbal assaults were motivated by personal lust for fame and recognition. Indeed, a writer, an ambitious young writer, is constantly trying to establish a name for himself. James Baldwin was right when he said that writers are egotistical and demanding. I have known a few writers who cannot stand hearing the success of another writer and thus immediately begin to write a new story or poem. In my writings I have never been motivated by rivalry. The idea of writing as a race seems to me as something ridiculous. Nobody wins in the arena of art. And yet it would be utterly naive to assume that writers are not motivated by fame.
Over the past years there are two writers that have been at the center of my consciousness. One I regard as a personal philosopher whom I see a lot myself in his vision of life. The other is more of a mentor guiding a blind Eastern writer into the chapel of Western Canon. Kierkegaard belongs to the former (the man in the second picture). The first time I read Kierkegaard was back in 2006 at Borders. The store was nearing closing time and I had just around twenty five minutes to browse through his book. However, with every page I read I felt time was stretching in my mind as if I was being thrown into a dark ocean and Kierkegaard was pulling me slowly to the bottom into his world. When I got there I realize that his world was also my world. I was never the same after that. Kierkegaard was my key into philosophy and myself.
But even today, I am still trying to figure out the whole purpose of philosophy. I don’t read them as many as I would want to. I prefer the freedom of making my personal view of life.
The man in the first picture is Harold Bloom. He is a Samuel Johnson reborn and perhaps one of the greatest living literary critics in the Western world. It has been a few months since I last read his books.
Buku di sebelah ini diterbitkan dengan tujuan untuk menjadi teman pembaca ketika berada di dalam pengangkutan awam dan ruang menunggu (barangkali sebuah hospital atau klinik atau mana-mana tempat yang ada ruang menunggu). Kalau kita ukur dari segi tempoh pembacaan, memang tidak selari cerita yang dibekalkan dengan tempat yang kita patut membacanya. Contoh, editor telah meletakkan beberapa cerpen 'panjang' bagi bahagian Kapal Terbang. Rasanya dalam satu perjalanan kapal terbang seseorang itu bukan sahaja boleh habiskan semua cerpen di bahagian ini malah mungkin satu buku. Jadi, saya fikir editor buku ini telah menyusun cerpen dan puisi dalam buku ini bukan atas dasar untuk mengikut 'waktu semasa' tetapi lebih untuk mengikut 'waktu imaginasi pembaca.' Setiap pembaca ada ruang imaginasi yang berbeza. Bagi penulis, ruang ini pasti lebih besar dan boleh menampung pelbagai input pembacaan dalam satu masa. Namun, pembaca biasa barangkali mempunyai ruang imaginasi yang lebih kecil berbanding penulis dan disebabkan itu tempoh pembacaan mereka hanya singkat. Satu persamaan yang jelas antara penulis dan pembaca biasa ialah keinginan untuk lari sebentar dari "realiti sebenar" seperti yang disebut oleh editor buku ini. Saya lebih suka melihat pembacaan sebagai proses mencari berbanding lari kerana pembacaan ialah suatu proses yang aktif dan kita membaca kerana kita mencari sesuatu yang kita tidak dapat cari dalam kehidupan sebenar. Bagi saya, buku ini mempunyai koleksi cerpen dan puisi yang mampu merangsang minat pembaca (dan penulis) untuk mencari diri mereka dan mungkin makna kehidupan sebenar.
