Stick and stones do break your bones.

Bersangka baik sesama manusia memang payah. Asal nampak benda pelik sikit saja, yang negatif mesti laju-laju masuk dalam kepala, yang positif macam segan-segan saja nak masuk, setakat melintas saja. Nampak lelaki peluk-peluk bahu sakit, terus gay. Tengok bola dekat stadium terus jatuh hukum tak solat lettew. Pokok goyang pun nak salahkan angin memanjang. Entah yang peluk bahu itu sebenarnya kuat ukhuwahnya, tak pun bahasa modennya bromance. Entah yang tengok bola itu perjalanannya lebih dua marhalah maka sudah boleh jamak. Sudahnya kalau pakcik belakang rumah suruh monyet peliharaannya panjat pokok, takkan makhluk itu memanjat lalu memetik buah kelapa dengan lemah gemalai. Nampak tak logik dia kalau kita fikir secara positif?

Jadi bilamana kes pasangan di Sweden mendapat liputan meluas masyarakat kita, tidaklah saya begitu terkejut membaca dan mendengar komen mereka di sekeliling lebih-lebih lagi di alam maya. Yang dapat saya simpulkan di sini adalah orang kita bukan sahaja sukar bersangka baik malah orang kita memang cepat menghukum. Lebih cepat daripada monyet tadi yang memanjat pokok kelapa. Seriously, I understand the concern expressed by the public, I do. And I do understand that you have every right to say or write anything you wish on the ticket of free speech. But the end doesn't justify the mean. It just doesn't, folks.

Ketika kes itu masih lagi dalam perbicaraan, orang-orang marhaen seperti kita sudah berjaya menyelesaikan kes tersebut, tanpa perlu berjumpa face-to-face dengan pasangan tersebut mahupun anak-anak yang terlibat. Agaknya Benedict Cumberbatch pun mungkin tersipu malu apabila anda mampu menyelesaikan kes ini dalam masa beberapa saat saja. Sherlock is the coolest show ever, by the way. Kalau takde Astro, sila download. OK balik kepada cerita asal. Orang kita memang pantas menghukum, baik yang menyokong ibunya mahupun yang menyokong anaknya.

Pertama sekali, kita perlu mengkaji sumber berita yang didengari atau dibaca. I've studied the pattern embedded in media discourse as part of my dissertation for my masters. Believe me, media can and have been manipulating the public to make decisions based on what they want you to believe and then make you think as if you are making those decisions by your own will. That's the true essence of mind controlling. Mind control is most effective when you are not aware of the nature in which it happened. Dan berdasarkan laporan akhbar terkini, terdapat pelbagai variasi dan provokasi yang dibangkitkan, baca headline sahaja pun sudah cukup menjengkelkan. Cakap saja versi mana yang mahu. Versi anak menangis menyesal, versi ibu memukul menggunakan kayu, versi tak bagi anak makan lapan jam, versi anak memburukkan ibunya sendiri ketika soal siasat. Dan setiap versi ini pasti akan mempengaruhi anda untuk menyokong satu pihak dan menghukum pihak yang lainnnya. Sad, isn't it? I've always reminded my students to read, just read from whatever sources you can find, but don't swallow everything. You read, you evaluate and you think. Do not lay your entire dependence on a single source. Chances are, they are as clueless as you are and just want supporters to make them feel intelligent.

Secondly, you are not in any way the victim/accused nor are you the witness. And this is not about you. Kalau anda pernah didera sekalipun, ini bukan anda. Kalau anda pernah dituduh mendera sekalipun, ini juga bukan anda. Mereka yang terlibat ini bukan anda dan tak mungkin anda mampu untuk meletakkan diri andi di tempat mereka. Tak semestinya anda didera, maka mereka juga didera. Tak semestinya anda memukul kerana mendidik, maka mereka juga memukul kerana mendidik. Do not enforce your own corporal punishment on people you knew nothing about. Suspend your judgement. Ini tidak, bukan main ramai lagi yang mengherdik tanpa akal dengna lidah setajam pedang. Bermacam label dan gelaran dianugerahkan kepada mereka - ibubapa kejam ada, anak derhaka ada. I mean, for once, put youself in their shoes. Everyone can sympathize, but it takes real courage to empathize. Anak-anak yang terlibat masih remaja. Dan sebagai remaja, tak sukar untuk dia mendapat maklumat tentang pandangan orang ramai terhadap dirinya. Tak perlu google, facebook atau twitter, di sekolah saja mungkin dia sudah dihukum masuk neraka oleh rakan sebaya. Your teenage years is an important stage of your life, teens are extremely sensitive. Avoid judging both the parents or the kid. Try to understand them. If you can't understand them, try at least to accept the fact that you have no right to judge people when you don't understand them. There is a certain decorum in which you treat an accused. After all, they are still only suspects. Everyone can be an armchair critic. Heck, even my six year old niece can do that. Try practicing intellectualism instead.

Finally, yang paling menjengkelkan ialah mereka yang mendapat maklumat tidak lengkap tapi dengan yakin halalan toyyiban berkongsi info di facebook dan menghentam sesuka hati. I mean, really? Check your facts, people. Always check your sources. Kalau setakat dengar makcik kiah hujung kampung bercerita selama dua minit, terus post cerita palsu itew. Kalau setakat dengar berita jam lapan empatpuloh saat pasal kes dera, terus post status berapi. Yang lebih sakit dari itu apabila keyboard warriors berpusu-pusu share status tersebut ibarat jualan mega akhir tahun. Use your head as well, not merely your heart. Ibarat tangkap orang mencuri roti dua ringgit dari kedai runcit pak ali, terus belasah sampai mati. Hukum hudud menentang bukan main katanya kejam, sudahnya hukum bunuh berperikemanusiaankah? Doakan sahaja yang terbaik buat keluarga ini dan juga buat keluarga di luar sana yang mungkin hidupnya lebih perit tapi masih tidak terbela.

Bersangka baik memang payah. Menghukum itu mudah. Memetik kata-kata Faisal Tehrani, "...Kerana payahnyalah kehidupan ini, kau dan aku akan lebih bermakna sebagai manusia."

The heart remembers.

Ever had one of those moments when you seem to know what's right but can't seem to take a step towards that direction? Like your body is telling you to move but your soul stubbornly refuses to budge? And you wish that you could slap your own sorry face for setting the roots in the wrong place?

Well, I have. And I think I've been in that situation for a long time now. I've been thinking about it quite a lot. Like why is my soul not synchronizing itself with my body and why am I not doing anything about it sooner? And the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. You see, my soul is more attached to my heart while my body is attached to my mind. The problem is; my heart and my mind are sworn enemies.

My heart is too emotional for my mind to comprehend and my mind is too rational for my heart to ever understand. My mind always goes for the simplistic solutions, like if you can't fix something then you let it go, you find something else and move on. But my heart goes for the sentimental values and spent years fixing broken things even when they are beyond repair, always finding reasons to hold on to things. So you see, my mind and heart are at constant war with each other. And apparently, the heart always wins, even when she knows she's wrong. Or rather, I always let the heart wins, even when I know she's wrong.

And yes, my heart has always been a 'she'. At least, that's what I think. And my mind is a 'he'. This makes the war having much more sense now, doesn't it? My mind is telling me to think like him, act like him and spare myself from the pain of holding on to things too tight because they'll either break into pieces or break me apart. My heart, on the contrary, tells me to feel like her, to understand what memories mean to her, to intensely fight and fix what I love because the pain of losing would break both her and I. I sometimes listen to the mind, but mostly I just turned a deaf ear and let the heart rules.

Over the years, my mind probably felt offended by my obvious preference and bias that I realized it has somehow partially stop functioning. I mean, how else would you explain these absurd happenings I've had lately? Like I can't seem to remember the lunch I've had yesterday, or the name of my family's cat that died last year, or my dad's license number, or the reasons why I hate that girl who used to sit in the front row in my class all year long, or the spelling of some random words I've used so many times, or how I managed to order a pizza delivery when I don't even know the name of the pizza?

But I do remember the wisdom words painted on the wall of my first-grade classroom, the name of the teacher who scolded me for failing a history test, the smell of someone's perfume six years after last smelling it, the color of the loosed paint on the door of the school bus, the sound of the cardboard scraping on the floor during my first play performance in high school, the boy who stood in the rain waiting for me to look up, the longest silence that lingered when I looked at old photos of people who meant so much, the touch of my best friend's hug that we rarely had because it seems corny back then and the tears that followed after when she died.

I forgot a lot. And yet I remember it all. I guess, sometimes, the heart remembers what the mind wants to forget.