Continuing Carnage on our Carriageways

Reposted from SEEING IT MY WAY, M. Bakri Musa (Malaysiakini.com) October 18, 2005
www.bakrimusa.com

The Continuing Carnage on our Carriageways

The human and economic costs from the continuing carnage on our carriageways are lost behind the horrific daily headlines of smashed vehicles and mangled bodies.
The human toll is unquantifiable. There is no way to measure the grief of those who have lost their loved ones, or the pain of those maimed. The economic consequences can be estimated, and that alone justifies making concerted efforts to address the issue.
As a surgeon, I am fully aware of the human dimensions of such tragedies. Years back during Ramadan, a car with four Indonesian students crashed on a dangerous highway outside my town, killing one of its occupants. The police had difficulty contacting her next-of-kin. Fortunately, I was able to help.
After introducing myself as a surgeon calling from a hospital in California, the mother�s immediate plea was for me to say that her daughter was fine. My slight hesitation in replying conveyed the tragic news. I confirmed her worst fears. After the quiet sobs, she pleaded that I say a prayer for her daughter. I did.
After three decades as a surgeon, I have seen thousands of such scenes, or variations thereof. I have also contributed academic papers on the topic.
The economic costs in property damages are huge, but miniscule compared to the expenses of medical care and rehabilitation. The loss of potential income of the dead and maimed in turn dwarfs those medical outlays.
The costs of improving that highway near my town have been recouped many times from the savings in not having to care for the injured.
Unfortunately, like other major problems in Malaysia, road safety gets the occasional brief attention from the leaders in the form of speeches at important gatherings, followed by a spate of commentaries. The problem is then considered solved, and conveniently forgotten.
In my talks to Americans posted to Malaysia, the one topic I emphasize is personal safety, in particular, road safety. By whatever measure � relative to the population, miles of road, number of users and vehicles � Malaysia�s road accident rates are among the highest, many folds higher than America�s.

The roads, the vehicles, the users

We can learn from others. Accidents do not just happen; we can plan, practice and teach road safety. There are three variables: the roads, the vehicles, and their users.
I am appalled at the lack of basic safety features on Malaysian roads. Stretches of busy highways do not have safety medians to prevent head-on collisions. Busy intersections have short exit and merge lanes, causing unnecessary and dangerous backups. Road signs are not clear, and when there are signs, they are often obscured by billboards or overgrown trees. Curves are not adequately banked. There are no �smart� lights designed to change when there is no traffic in that direction. Intersections with �round abouts� and �stop� signs are overloaded.
These are all elementary stuff, written in all road design textbooks. If it is too expensive to send our engineers abroad to learn these safety features, then get those experts to Malaysia to teach ours.
America too experienced horrendous accident rates in the 1950s and 60s, soon after the completion of the interstate freeway system. Since then the designs have improved considerably, and so have the accident rates.
Two developments occur in tandem: better-made cars with safety a priority, and improved driver education.
Today�s cars come with safety belts, air bags, antilock brakes, and sturdier frames. Consumer advocates like Ralph Nader did much to put safety a priority in the design and manufacture of cars. America�s generous tort system ensures that manufacturers would pay a heavy price for neglecting the safety of their products.
Car mechanics are certified and liable for their work; hence they use only genuine parts. A jury-rigged brake job may suffice for a leisurely drive in the kampong, but deadly on the freeway. Cars are inspected annually for smog emission, giving mechanics an opportunity to warn owners of worn brakes, bald tires, and other potential hazards.
Drivers too have improved their skills, with driver education now taught in schools. Senior citizens and those with visual problems and medical illnesses like diabetes and seizure disorders require medical clearance before getting their driver�s license. There are regular public service announcements that give useful road safety tips like keeping a car length distance from the car ahead for every 10 MPH of speed.
Drivers are educated that there is a definite delay in the human response time. At a leisurely 30 MPH, it is inconsequential; on the speeding freeway, it could be fatal.
The lethal combination of alcohol and driving is constantly emphasized, and reinforced by rigorous random roadside stop checks. Malaysia fortunately is mostly spared this particular hazard. An unknown one lurks, however: drugs.
Recent rapid increases in gas prices have a safety bonus; drivers are driving less and slower.

System Error of Pervasive Corruption

Improvements in roads, cars and users would all be for naught if the entire system malfunctions. The greatest contributor to system failure is pervasive corruption.
Corruption in awarding construction tenders resulted in crashed flyways, collapsed bridges, and below-specifications highways, not to mention bloated costs. Without corruption, the money saved could be used for improved safety measures.
Corruption in the Road Department resulted in �Kopi oh!� licenses, a hazard for their holders and others. Perverted national priorities allow the national car manufacturers to ignore safety in their products. This in turn encouraged foreign manufacturers to dump their defective cars onto local markets.
Rampant corruption among enforcers, in particular the traffic police and road department personnel, contributes and aggravates the problems. Traffic violations from speeding to overloading trucks are solved at the �local� level. Violators and enforcers mutually benefit from such corrupt exchanges, but society pays a horrific price.
Overlapping jurisdiction is another factor. The Road Department inspects commercial vehicles; the traffic police have no mechanics to inspect dangerous vehicles already on the road. In America, unsafe trucks are pulled off the road immediately by the highway patrol until the problems are corrected, imposing a double burden on their owners with fines and loss of use; likewise with overloaded trucks. These are effective deterrence.
There is more to solving the safety problem than endless exhortations for drivers to be careful. Human considerations aside, economic imperatives demand that we solve it aggressively and in its totality.

Fw: [PROMUDA-Circle] A Budget Of, By, and For Civil Servants

A Budget Of, By, And For Civil Servants
M. Bakri Musa
www.bakrimusa.com

The recently unveiled Federal Budget is a windfall for government employees. It is a budget of, by and for civil servants.
With this budget, the government continues to expand, with the number of civil servants ballooning close to a million. Its domination of the economy and marketplace continues unabated. This budget betrays the government�s incessant rhetoric of reinventing itself. It is business as usual, with more of the same. The government has learned nothing from past mistakes and experiences, in particular the 1997 economic contagion.
The only deference to that crisis was the government�s much-hyped reduction of the deficit, from over 5 percent of the GDP only a few years ago to a projected under 4 this year.
Anytime a government, especially a democratic one, can cut its budget deficit, that is indeed laudatory. America is having problems addressing its gaping deficits because of political realities. Democratic governments risk being voted out should they cut favorite programs or raise taxes. Deficits are nothing more than the government bribing its voters.

Nature of Deficit More Important

Reducing deficits and having balanced budgets may please the fiscally conservative, but this may not necessarily be wise. The nature of the deficits is more crucial.
If the deficits are for funding schools and health facilities, that is money well spent. It represents wise investment in the most precious asset of a nation, its human capital. Healthy and well-educated citizens will pay dividends way in excess of the investments, quite apart from the humanitarian merits of such endeavors. Similarly, those deficits are acceptable if used for funding infrastructures and other productive investments.
On the other hand, if those deficits arose from building grandiose skyscrapers, ornate palaces, and fancy headquarters for civil servants, then we have a major problem. Unfortunately, this is the usual state of affairs in Third World nations. Many also divert their scant public resources to risky commercial ventures.
Many Third World countries that have absolutely no expertise or trained personnel in aviation brashly start their own national airlines. These leaders just cannot get away from such prestige items.
Malaysia is not immune to such temptations. Its national airline, like other Government-linked companies, continues to drain the Treasury. This budget repeats the pattern of spawning new GLCs, including a colossal one with the initial price tag of RM2B to dabble in real estate. Others would engage in equally risky businesses like biotechnology and agro-business. Obviously we have not learned anything from the expensive lessons of Perwaja and Bank Bumiputra.
Generous funding for social investments alone is not enough. If through corruption and political patronage those precious funds were not spent prudently, then its investment value would plummet very quickly. By whatever measure (relative to the economy, overall budget or population) Malaysia expends huge sums on education, yet it has little to show for it. Experts, employers and parents all agree that the products of our schools and universities are wanting.
Through corruption, political patronage and sheer incompetence, considerable leakage occurs with public expenditure s in Malaysia. Yet this budget addresses none of these pressing issues. There is no increased funding for the Anti-Corruption Agency, for example.

Bloated Public Sector

I have no problem with rewarding workers for a job well done. This budget generously rewards civil servants with extra bonuses, increased pensions, better housing, and liberal allowances. There are also new agencies, meaning more civil servants, like the Health Tourism unit and agricultural attaches. We currently have education attaches abroad. It may be coincidental, but the enrollment of foreign students has declined! I would not count on those civil servants to increase health tourism or agricultural exports.
Paying, housing, and pampering civil servants consume a massive chunk of the budget. This will only increase with time; there is no restraint. I am against these allowances and special housings as they isolate civil servants from outside realities. Presently, civil servants know nothing about gyrations of interest rates, housing costs, and living expenses because they are insulated by their subsidized allowances.
Special housing for civil servants and the police are particularly pernicious, as that will physically isolate them from the community. Pay them the market rate and let them find housing like the rest of us. That will inject a dose of reality on them. Besides, having a policeman or someone from the Anti Corruption Agency as your neighbor will have a salutary effect on the community.
The huge size of government presents other problems quite apart from costs. When the government is a massive employer, it deprives the private sector of talent. One reason the Soviet system collapsed is that the party and government sucked up talent, with little left for private sector and society.
It is not so much the size of government that matters rather what it does with the resources and personnel. Scandinavian countries all have big governments and large public sectors, but their citizens are competitive and economies robust. That is because those governments use their resources for productive public services like healthcare, education, childcare, and generous social safety nets. No wonder their citizens are contented with few emigrating, despite their long winters and short summers.
India has an equally large public sector, but its public servants are busy checking and issuing permits, and otherwise making a pest of themselves to producers and entrepreneurs. As a result, unlike the Scandinavians, Indians flock out of their country given a chance.
The public sector in Malaysia is more like India than Scandinavia. We have our share of �Permit Rajs.� A large chunk of the religious establishment (it too, like others, is getting increased allocation with this budget) is devoted to such non-productive pursuits as ensuring Muslims do not hold hands in public.
This being Malaysia, there is the ugly racial element. Governments are always less efficient and less responsive than private enterprises. Unlike businesses, governments are spared the rigorous discipline of the marketplace.
As the public sector in Malaysia is almost exclusively in Malay hands, its inefficiencies and sluggishness are viewed not as inherent deficiencies of governments but as another defect of Malays. Unfortunately, this important facet of public perception is lost on our mostly Malay civil servants.
When an American civil servant like the former FEMA Director Michael Brown fumbled, it was seen as another typical incompetent political appointee, and nothing more. When the Director-General of Customs in Malaysia had a binge of gala retirement parties, that was viewed as a deficiency of the Malay character.
Of course, that is unfair. Given that reality, I would expect Malay civil servants to perform better in order to eradicate this unjust stereotyping. Unfortunately, many them are oblivious of this and bent on living up to this ugly characterization.
This budget also reinforces another Malay stereotype, of being utterly dependent on big government. The rhetoric of �glokal Malays� and �New Malays� notwithstanding, this budget represents business as usual.

The writer is compeleting his latest book, Towards A Competitive Malaysia.

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The Thesis That Shook Malay Minds

The Thesis That Shook Malay Minds
M. Bakri Musa


It is symbolic that on this anniversary of Malaysia�s merdeka that I should be posting on the Internet (www.kassimblogspot.com) the thesis that shook the thinking of Malays and liberated their minds.
Kassim Ahmad�s Characterisation in Hikayat Hang Tuah began as an academic exercise.  It was an honor�s thesis in partial fulfillment for the Bachelor�s of Arts degree in Malay Studies at the University of Malaya, Singapore.  Kassim Ahmad ended up shaking the very foundation of Malay society.  Not many academic or other writings can claim to have such an impact!
Kassim�s brilliant insight makes Malays alter fundamentally how we view our sultans and society.  We now can clearly differentiate between loyalties to principles versus personalities.
As a free, civilized and law-abiding society, we remain true to our values and principles.  Leaders come and go, but our values remain firm.  Those who deviate from our values do not deserve our loyalty.  That is the essence of Kassim�s message.
Sultans, like fashion, change with the seasons, but the enduring values of our society remain true, to guide and save us.
Personal loyalties are also notably fickle.  We can buy those loyalties; each of us has our price.  Some can be had with mere wealth, others by fancy titles or simple flattery.  Only the price varies.
The problem with bought loyalty is just that; thus others can offer a much better price.  This can lead to the downfall of a society.
The British bought Malay sultans by giving them the impression that they were on par with His Majesty.  Just to be sure, the British also gave those sultans impressive royal titles and the perfunctory visit to Buckingham Palace, full of pomp and ceremony of course.  Oh yes, there were also the meager royal allowances and the occasional Roll Royces.  With those, the British effectively controlled those kampong potentates and successfully colonized Malaysia.  Malay sultans� loyalty was to their British lord and not the rakyats.  In effect, the sultans had betrayed their loyalty to Malay society.
Following Kassim�s thesis, remaining blindly loyal to the sultans would mean pledging our loyalty to the British.  Those who rebelled against the sultans for betraying society would then be our heroes, not the sultans.  These heroes were loyal to the values and principles of our society.
Today UMNO politicians can be bought through �money politics.� Right now only corrupt Malay businessmen are doing the buying. It would only be a matter of time before others, meaning non-Malays and foreigners, more corrupt and more generous would have these UMNO politicians, and by proxy, our nation.
Kassim�s ideas are truly revolutionary.  He did not know this, but Kassim is a genuine reformer or reformis, as we say in today�s Malay.  He was one long before that bastardized English word entered our lexicon.  Unlike today�s �reformers,� whose antics and ugly demonstrations resulted in nothing but endless traffic jams and disruptions of businesses, the reform initiated by Kassim is more enduring.
A century from now, our grandchildren would have forgotten today�s leaders and sultans, but thanks to Kassim�s genius, the debate on who is worthy of emulation, Hang Tuah or Hang Jebat, will still be vigorously pursued.  That is the lasting tribute to Kassim Ahmad.
It is tempting to compare Kassim�s thesis to Martin Luther�s famous Ninety-Five Theses that he posted on the church doors of Medieval Europe.  Luther frontally challenged the excesses of the entrenched Catholic establishment and went on to start a new religious movement; Kassim let his words do the challenging.
Even though he was doing his degree in Malay Studies, Kassim Ahmad wrote his thesis in English.  This dissertation would have remained an obscure academic exercise known only to the few Malays literate in that language except that the newly established Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (Literary and Language Agency) was desperate to publish works in Malay and thus translated Kassim�s work.
My first introduction to this seminal work was in my Malay class during high school.  Our regular teacher, a Malay-educated individual, was sick and his substitute was our geography teacher, himself Malay, who had taught us in English.  His literacy in that language enabled him to read Kassim�s thesis and thereby passed on the wisdom to us.  I do not remember anything he taught me in geography, but in that one substitute class, he ignited a spark in me.
I am honored and privileged that Kassim has entrusted me to disseminate his writings.  With his kind permission, I have created a website for him to serve as an electronic repository for his essays and books.  In future, I will also post the Malay translation (Perwatakan Hikayat Hang Tuah) with its modern Malay spelling.
My future projects include posting Kassim�s Hadis:  Satu Penilaian Baru in its original Malay.  Currently there is a link to the entire translation in English on Kassim�s website.
I believe very strongly that Kassim�s views deserve a wider audience.  That is my mission.  It is also my modest contribution to and acknowledgment of this great intellectual in our midst.  It is symbolically appropriate that I start the project today, on Malaysia�s 58th anniversary of independence.  Kassim�s ideas opened my mind; they liberated me and gave me my intellectual merdeka.  I hope they will do the same for you.
The installment begins in a few days. I will be posting a few thousand words at a time, a length that is easily readable at one surfing of the webpage.
Please visit Kassim�s website at:  www.kassimahmad.blogspot.com or simply click on the link on the side bar (blogroll) of this webpage. Happy reading!


M. Bakri Musa
www.bakrimusa.com
August 31, 2005

A Tribute to Kassim Ahmad

A Tribute to Kassim Ahmad

M. Bakri Musa

Reading Kassim Ahmad�s recent interview with Zainon Ahmad (the Sun Daily Weekend Edition, August 19, 2005) excites and invigorates me. It brought back the joy and exhilaration I had on reading for the first time Kassim�s The Characterizations of Hang Tuah while in high school in the 1950s. He was in his twenties when he wrote it, but his brilliance and courage shone through clearly despite his youth.

In the recent interview, despite his age I am thrilled that Kassim still displays his characteristic intellectual sparks, vigor and agility.

Kassim�s novel interpretation of our literary classic, Hikayat HangTuah, forced me (and others) to look differently at our culture and world. I felt a sense of grand wonderment after reading his work, as if a thick veil had been lifted off me. Kassim whetted my youthful rebellious spirit. It fortified me to challenge the certitudes forced upon me by my culture. In the process, I saw the beauty and elegance of the world and of my culture. At the same time, I also became painfully aware of the ugliness of that world and my culture.

Today, decades later and presumably much wiser as well as more accepting, I am still filled with wonderment on reading Kassim�s interview, but for different reasons.

Here I am in the mecca of capitalism and fully embracing as well as benefiting from free enterprise, full of admiration and respect for this man who is an ardent and committed socialist.

I believe firmly that free enterprise is the best avenue for achieving individual and as well as society�s fulfillment, while Kassim is fully committed to the egalitarian ideals of socialism. Our utopia is the same: a just, caring and prosperous society where citizens are free to pursue their personal ideals and dreams.

While I am geographically separated from Kassim by the vast Pacific, and philosophically even further away from him, yet I feel intellectually close to him. I greatly appreciate his works and welcome his views and ideas. I admire the man for his courage, talent and commitment. I respect him even more for such qualities are rare, and even rarer is the combination.

In Malaysia today, specifically in Malay culture, we remain deeply divided over trivial differences. We do not hesitate labeling each other as traitors for inconsequential political differences. With impunity, we denigrate each other as infidels for simply daring to express minor differences in interpretation of our faith. Our leaders disparage our young as being ungrateful for boldly asking uncomfortable questions.

It is as if we expect Malays to be clones of one another. In our culture, we are told to loathe and ostracize the black sheep. In doing this we implicitly compare ourselves to a flock of sheep, mindlessly following the shepherd. Indeed leaders especially those with a dictatorial bent would like their followers to be like sheep.

It is well to remember that while a benevolent shepherd would lead his flock to greener pastures, a blind one could just as easily lead them off the cliff, and a deaf one to the wolf�s den.

I have been exchanging views and letters with Kassim Ahmad for quite some time. The medium of the Internet brings us closer together as if we were in nearby villages. If a core capitalist like me and a staunch socialist like Kassim can be respectful of each other�s views and be welcoming of each other�s contributions, I fail to see why our larger community remains unnecessarily divided into liberal and fundamentalist Muslims, UMNO and PAS politicians, or monarchist and republican Malays. It pains me immensely, and I am certain Kassim too, to see our people thus polarized. Our diversity is our strength, not our weakness. It is our prized asset, not a cursed liability. We are humans, not sheep; we should expect and indeed welcome differences in taste, views and choices.

In the classic epic, the two heroes Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat could not resolve their differences. Their conflict consumed their friendship, and ultimately their honor and lives. It also divided and destroyed their community. There is no reason why modern day Hang Tuahs and Hang Jebats have to follow suit and allow that to happen to themselves and their community. If we must battle it out, let it be in the battlefield of ideas, and only there.

Anak Yang Soleh (The Prodigal Son)

When growing up, my father used to tell stories of Anak Yang Soleh (The Prodigal Son), the individual who would do society good. His reasons for relating such stories were obvious, as expressions of paternal duty as well as hope.

As his world extended only to what had been taught to him by his forefathers, my father�s model of prodigal sons were all religious figures except for Zaaba, the legendary scholar; Hamka, the alim and philosopher; and Munshi Abdullah, the teacher and chronicler.

Zaaba had a special place in my father�s heart, as well as mine. He was from a village nearby, indeed he was a member of our suku (tribe), hence our prideful sense of reflected glory. I remember listening in rapt awe on Radio Malaya the public oration delivered on his being awarded a Doctorate of Letters from the University of Malaya in Singapore on his retirement. My father had indeed set a very high standard for me!

I came to know of Hamka and Munshi Abdullah through their writings. Living in an alien world away from my familiar culture, these three provide my anchoring stability that bonds me to my traditions and values.

In my view, Kassim Ahmad is one anak yang soleh. It pains me greatly that our society has chosen to ignore this man. Kassim however would prefer this state of affair. The last time the authorities paid heed to Kassim, he ended up in jail under the Internal Security Act! When members of the Islamic establishment read or claimed to have read Kassim�s works, they labeled him anti-hadith.

In time, those establishment ulama will disappear with their pension, but Kassim and his ideas will endure. Thanks to insight of Kassim, our grandchildren and their grandchildren will still be debating Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat, and learning useful lessons from the discourse.

I am always amused when readers compliment me for my courage in expressing my views so freely. I live in a society that prizes individual freedom; besides, I am beyond the reach of the ISA. In truth, it is individuals like Kassim Ahmad who are truly courageous. They have felt the wrath of the authorities and yet continue to speak out against injustices and tyranny.

Kassim Ahmad rejoined UMNO in 1986. He is a severe and persistent critic of the Malaysian brand of politics as usual, in particular political shenanigans and blatant corruptions. Nonetheless, he can be generous in his praises. In this interview as well in his earlier essays, he spoke warmly and favorably of Tun Mahathir. This led many to the mistaken belief that the man had gone soft or worse, become an apologist for the status quo.

This latest interview should disabuse those who misjudge the core character of this great man.

[For those interested, Kassim�s website is: www.kassimahmad.blogspot.com]

The writer, a surgeon in Silicon Valley, California, is completing his latest book, Towards A Competitive Malaysia. He can be reached at bakrimusa@juno.com (www.bakrimusa.com)

Protectionism

In response to posting in Jeff Ooi's Blog - Tengku Mahaleel's Parting Shots

We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing it. - Thomas Jefferson

The controversy never ends. Wake up and smell the coffee. This subsidy and protection mentality has to stop, some where. Sure you were a fledgling industry many, many years ago. One would have expected that you would have learnt from your mistakes and improved your weaknesses. Afterall, isn't that what life is all about? Perpetual protection does not allow you to grow but rather stifles you and makes you a weakling.

We live in a competitive world and it takes strength and courage tempered with honesty to survive. In golf you start with a double digit handicap and the others give you a break to improve and become competitive. When the time comes and you want to play in the PGA (World Class?), you cannot be relying on your handicap!

Proton cars have always given Malaysians the short end of the stick. My friend's Waja gave him problems from the day he bought it. The engine would freeze for no apparent reason and he had near misses with life when his car stalled while overtaking. Proton answer: Cannot figure it out but come back whenever it happens! For 2 years he did just that and then finally gave up. Sold his car and vowed never another Proton.

Proton has always compromised safety for cosmetics and blamed it on price averse Malaysians. Airbags, double laminated windshields etc. Are always that last to be added to Malaysian models but are an everpresent feature on export models! Leather seats and false wood trimmings are more important, so that you could meet your maker in style.

Time to come out from behind the apron strings.

Give a man fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, and feed him for life! Enough of giving Proton fish, time for it to learn to fish. Evolve or perish that is the order of the day. Do not belief, check out Darwinism. Even animals protect their young, for awhile, then the time comes to LET GO!

Steve Jobs, June 12, 2005 - Standford Report

I was totally impressed and moved by what Steve Jobs had said in this speech. I received from a source. I sincerely hope that it is the actual text, but nevertheless read on!

Written by Steve Jobs ¨C founder of Apple Computers. If you want to excel in something you must love what you are doing.

Stanford Report, June 14, 2005

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl.

So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course. "My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK.

It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting. It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple.

I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them.

If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky ¨C I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired.

How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me ¨C" I still loved what I did.

The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over. I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything ¨C all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."

It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

The Suspension of a Deputy Minister

It is yet another sad day for the august House, democracy and freedom in Malaysia. Is the freedom of speech formally dead in Malaysia. A Deputy Minister is suspended, not only from the parliament but also from his post, tch, tch, tch. I am curious to know if any Minister or Deputy Minister has been suspended from Parliament for for similiar reasons. This might yet be another first for this new administration!

Needless to say, name calling, vulgar language, sexist remarks, double entendre and other politically incorrect statements have been quite the mainstay in our parliament. Now, why this hypersensitive reaction to remarks made in a place where the individuals have the highest liberties to say what they think, hopefully for the benefit of the nation. I also think, what DS Samy Velu said in the media (broadcast on TV), was louder and heard by more people.

Irrespective of how the issue has evolved or was debated and the fact that it has taken racial overtones, it is not the first time in the Malaysian parliament. I also think he was defending the race and the party (MIC) that put him there in the first place, when the government failed to consider the intricacies before shooting itself in the foot. Again is it his fault, afterall, the leading political parties, the powers that WILL in this country are drawn along racial lines, how else will the politicians react when an issue takes a serious racial slant. Look at the potential 'beneficiaries' of this decision.

In this case, Sothinathan or for that matter, any other mainstream party politician worth his salt has to stand up and be counted in order to remain relevant to his voters and his party. Unfortunately it is a classic case of heads you lose and tails they win. Alas, are we bridging the racial divide? Tch, tch, tch.

IMAGINE THIS HAS HAPPENED TO A RULING PARTY POLITICIAN IN A PLACE WHERE FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS SUPPOSED TO BE ABSOLUTE!