Me and My Muses the Daughters of Zeus

A Kadir Jasin

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيمِ

PREAMBLE: Views expressed herein are entirely mine. I am writing in my personal capacity as a blogger. It has nothing to do with whatever position I may hold.

 

My Muses have gone missing, hopefully only temporarily

TO THOSE who sent me messages asking about my wellbeing, I say, thank you very much. I am grateful.

My answer is still the same: “I am never not ok.”

Like I told officer of the Malaysian Armed Forces at the Maktab Ketahanan Nasional on November 20, though I am 72, I could still stand at the rostrum to address them.

That, to a very great extent because my health is generally good, but more importantly my superior is 20 years my senior. That makes me very young.

As for my general silence, the blame is on my missing Muses.

For not-a-very-strange reason, all the nine daughters of Zeus decided to abandon me all at the same time.

I don’t know why. Maybe they too are confused with what is going on in our beloved Malaysia.

Maybe our politics has become even more complex than when the Greeks originated them.

Politics is generally considered a Greek invention. The Oxford dictionaries describe democracy as “a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.”

Wikipedia says, democracy is from Greek “δημοκρατία” dēmokratía which literally "rule by people" is a form of government in which the people have the authority to choose their governing legislation.

It adds that who the people are and how authority is shared among them are core issues for democratic development and constitution.

Some cornerstones of these issues are freedom of assembly and speech, inclusiveness and equality, membership, consent, voting, right to life and minority rights.

I don’t blame my Muses if they are confused with our practice of democracy - the lack or the excesses of it. Maybe because we are not as wise as the Greeks as we don’t have the likes of Aristotle and Socrates.

Unlike Socrates who chose to die an honorable death by drinking poison than suffer the indignity of retracting his alleged misdeeds, our politicians seldom own up to their mistakes and misdeeds.

Instead, having committed dastardly crimes against their constituents, they shamelessly claimed that they are victims of politically motivated conspiracies.

Now that I am away from my beloved homeland and in an Alpine location that is only 1,640 kilometers from Athens, I hope my Muses will come back to me.

Like the lyric of the song “My Friend the Wind”, which was made famous by the Greek singer, Demis Roussos, my Muses will come back to me like the wind from the hills.

(My friend the wind will come from the hills
When dawn will rise, he'll wake me again
My friend the wind will tell me a secret
He shares with me, he shares with me

My friend the wind will come from the north
With words of love, she whispered for me
My friend the wind will say she loves me
And me alone, and me alone…………).

Or they will not come back instead slowly and softly seek out their Adagio.

(I don't know where to find you
I don't know how to reach you
I hear your voice in the wind
I feel you under my skin
Within my heart and my soul
I wait for you
Adagio

All of these nights without you
All of my dreams surround you
I see and I touch your face
I fall into your embrace
When the time is right, I know
You'll be in my arms
Adagio……..)

Who knows, I too may have to look for my Adagio.

Thank you.