A new pair of eyes...
 
 

As soon as I entered the house and wished her salam and Eidul Adha greetings, I noticed  a happy and smiling face was  written all over my grand-auntie's face. Her face looks radiant and bright like a teenage girl but with a few wrinkles. Before I could ask for the explaination, she told me everything what I wanted to know including  those I dare not ask. Everything looks beautiful to her since she has got a new pair of eyes! May be all of us should get a new pair of eyes ...

Now she is about 75 years old lady. I say 'about' because no one is sure what year she was born. This is nothing unusual because my late father's age is older than her older sister's age -that is  according to what was written in the IC. Since her eldest son is 55 years old, her age is some where there about;-)

She suffered in silence the degradation of her eyesight for the last ten years! She wouldn't want to waste money for any eyes treatment or buying a pair of reading glass. As long as she can continue reading the Quran, everything is fine.Lately, her eyesight has been getting bad to worse. Last year, she could not see anything-everything is black; that is the time when she asked her son to send her to the hospital where she was operated and was given a new pair of 'eye-lenses'. Now, I am not suprised that everything seems beautiful to her after being in the dark for a few years(the pun was intended;-)

As they say,beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. I must add that everybody(or everything) is beautiful in her/his own way. The eyes are just the gateway where images are transmitted to the minds- and every mind interprets it in its own way. To Ceasar(?), what he saw he wanted to conquer like his famous words," I came, I saw and I conquered". By the way, my yet to be famous words are I saw, I sighed and I forget about it;-)

Familiarity  breeds contempt. It also applies to things we see everyday in our life-like the furnitures in your house or office. You don't notice them anymore because they are there all the time. Now, we understand why small kids will try to touch and play with anything. Everything is new and interesting to them. To adults like us, everything seems to be as old as us-nothing is interesting anymore!

To see things differently, we don't have to have the eyes of the kids nor the new 'lenses' as my grand-auntie. Just change the way we see things. Just take a little bit more time to see the 'old' things closely; preferably try to touch and smell them-get closer. I did that to my old math book that I used when I was in form one 1965. You will be suprised what you will discover. Honestly, I love to be included in the Prime Minister trip to Antartica but I don't have to be there to discover new things. I can be just any where and yet I could see new things-it is ALL in our minds! However, we need to be at new places to stimulate the minds sometimes. In all honesty, I love to sleep in an igloo for a change.

Many of my peers told me they got bored with their lives and their work, and also with their bosses and worse with their wives! ( For all I know,their wives are bored with them but dared not speak up). A few had tried to get younger wives to add excitement to their lives! IMHO, they are entering a danger zone looking for troubles. When I asked them a few questions, I found out that my friends are the bored guys and not their spouses. The  onus is on us to continuously adding spices to our lives....

How do we add new spices to our life? One has to choose one's own to suit one's favourite flavour...

To-day I bought a digital camera. It is a new toy in my house where everyone in my family can use it. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to use it. For me, I want to record some snapshots of Malaysian lifestyle-the good,the bad and the ugly and post them at my website(http://www.berisman.com).It will be online on 15/3/2002 ( 1 Muharam) to coincide with the Muslim New Year 1423. My kids and my wife may want to take photos of subjects of their interests. They are only limited by their own ingeniuty to see and discover digital photography in any angle they wish to shoot from.

Hopefully, all of us will try harder to see things differently and make living more interesting;-) And in my case,I will try to keep it as simple as possible but Simply Interesting!