‘The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honourable, to be compassionate, and to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.’
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882)
CIRCA first half of the 1960s: I reckon the year could have been 1960 or 1961 or 1962, which would put me at between seven and nine years old. It was not 1963 because Malaysia was formed that year and I would surely remember such a momentous time.
Anyway, I remember being a primary school pupil in my remote rural village in Serian District and on the day in question, while running an errand for my mother, I overheard this conversation.
“I say, don’t help,” said Curly.
“That’s being unkind. The family is in trouble,” said Tattoo.
“I don’t mind helping, but I don’t like helping a lazy man,” said Long Tooth.
“How do you know he’s lazy,” asked Lanky the shopkeeper.
“You can tell by just watching him,” said Curly.
“He was not lazy when he was younger,” said Tattoo. “He seems to have changed.”
“Somebody has to help or his family will be in big trouble,” said Long Tooth.
“How do you know?” asked Lanky.
“His wife talked with my wife yesterday. She said they were running low on rice,” said Tattoo.
“What did you do?” Lanky continued.
“I didn’t do anything,” said Tattoo. “My wife gave her some rice … enough for a week or so, I think.”
“Two of the kids were in my house last week, playing with my son while I was having lunch,” said Long Tooth. “They kept looking at my food and suddenly I lost my appetite.”
“So, you ended up sharing your food with them,” said Curly.
“I did!” said Long Tooth. “I couldn’t help it. They looked so hungry.”
It did not take me long to realise that they were talking about the village Violinist whose house I liked to walk by because he often sat on his veranda playing sentimental tunes on his instrument.
For context, let me clarify a few things first before continuing the story. I don’t want you, the reader, to have too many unanswered questions in your head this early.
Notice the unusual names of the guys having the conversation? I made them up to get around a particular aspect of the Bidayuh culture.
You see, by custom, the Bidayuh don’t always call each other by name. For example, we are not allowed to mention the names of our parents, except when filling out official forms. We’re forbidden from saying the names of our elders, so much so that we often don’t know people’s real or official names.
In this particular case, I remember the men by naming them according to their unique physical features. And for this story, I want their real identities to be hidden from their living family members.
Curly had curly hair; Tattoo had a dark-green snake inked into the uppermost part of his right arm; Long Tooth had one prominent tooth protruding from under his upper lip; Lanky was unusually thin and tall; and the Violinist meant just that — he liked playing an old scratched-up violin that had only two strings instead of four.
On the day the conversation took place, I was expecting a bit of talking-to for having played too long with some friends, but as luck would have it, my mother was glad to see me when I entered our house. She put a few coins in my hand and told me to go to a shop to buy salt and dried anchovies.
My village had three shops those days and the nearest to our house was a stilted wooden structure on the edge of a ditch.
Shoppers got to it by stepping onto its bridge-like veranda that spanned the ditch between the building and the main road.
On the veranda three men gathered around a rustic table drinking leftover ‘tuak’, an intoxicating drink made from fermented sticky rice. I ignored them at first as I thought they were talking about some typical crude men-only topics.
But what do you know?! For once, they were talking about something serious and meaningful. Under discussion was whether or not a man deserved their help. That grabbed my attention because even as a child I knew about helping others.
Our elders were always helping one another at home or on the farms. I always thought that such a thing was straightforward and needed no discussion.
After dinner that night, by the dim light of our little kerosene lamp, I told my parents about the conversation and asked them why the men were reluctant to help the Violinist.
Father said that was not the first time that they discussed the matter. They had helped the Violinist before, both individually and as a group. In other words, they were talking from experience.
“I was in one of the discussions before … last year, I think,” said Father.
“I remember that occasion,” said Mother. “They were helping us on our paddy farm. Yes, I remember it now. The conversation was about helping those who help themselves.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means you help those who are already making an effort to improve their situation,” said Father.
“Is the Violinist not doing that?” I asked.
“Those men seem to think so. They know him better than I do,” said Father.
The next day, I forgot all about the men’s conversation and the Violinist because school was hard and needed all my attention.
Years went by and I grew up. I went to secondary school in Serian town and then moved to Kuching. Having left school before the age of 18 I was too young to apply for a permanent job with a government department or a business organisation, so I joined some friends at a construction site where I got paid a pittance to do hard labour. It was better than nothing but at least I wasn’t hungry, and in the process, I acquired some useful skills for free.
I learned concrete mixing, bricklaying, plastering, basic carpentry, metal cutting and bending, plumbing, and house painting – all the skills needed to avoid paying a contractor later on in life when building or repairing things for my family and some friends.
As misfortune would have it, I had a high fever one day. I could not go to work for several days and spent most of the time trying to sleep off the illness in a rented ground-floor room that I shared with two friends.
Then as luck would have it, a friendly Malay family, whose house was close by, got wind of my illness from one of my roommates. The family’s matriarch promptly came and gave me a plate of ‘cucur pisang’ (fried banana fritters) and two pills for my fever and headache.
That set my brain on overdrive despite my headache, and naturally, I asked myself, “Did I deserve the woman’s kindness?”
She did not know me and I had never done anything for her. Yet she came to my assistance without thinking “Help only those who help themselves”.
Since I learned the lesson from the men on the shop veranda that day, I thought that helping only those who help themselves was the right thing to do. After all, it made sense. Why waste time and resources on people who aren’t willing to help themselves?
Less than a year after the woman helped me, I left the place and my friends and went on to other things. As I got older and saw more of the world, I realised that life is not simple.
I saw people who were struggling, not because they were lazy, but because they had been dealt a bad hand in life. They were born into poverty or they had suffered a tragedy, or they were discriminated against because of their race or gender.
They were doing their best to improve their situation, but it was an uphill battle.
I also saw people who had everything handed to them on a silver platter, but who were lazy and entitled. They didn’t deserve help, but they got it anyway because of their wealth or connections.
I realised that life is complicated and messy and that there are no easy answers. Sometimes, you have to help those who aren’t helping themselves, not because they deserve it, but because it’s the right thing to do.
And sometimes, you have to withhold help from those who are helping themselves, not because they don’t deserve it, but because they don’t need it as much as someone else.
In the end, it’s not about helping only those who help themselves. It’s about helping those who need it, regardless of whether they deserve it or not.
It’s about being kind and compassionate, even when it’s hard.
And it’s about realising that we’re all in this together and that we need to look out for each other if we want to make the world a better place.
The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the New Sarawak Tribune.
