I started From the Bar Stool (FTBS) on 6 October 2020. Today is 9 June 2023. I have been posting my essays every Friday. I haven’t missed one since. It’s been 2 years 8 months 4 days since I started.
This is the 204th essay I uploaded. I chose it to congratulate myself for getting this far. Everyone celebrates round number figures: 10, 20, 50, 100, 1000. In keeping with my maverick spirit, I chose the 204th post to celebrate. Celebrating this random number reminds me to celebrate each post and not only when I reach some comely-looking figure, as is my custom.
Not that I think anybody cares or notices. And that’s fine.
I would keep posting even if no one read me now. I am writing this for my future self when I have forgotten most of it, my family, friends and whoever else finds my musings and stories of interest and educational value.
FTBS has been and is a personal experimental project. Something to commit to for writing and thinking discipline. Something to take a play about with and delight in. Something to let the like-minded and like-hearted know they are not alone in their thoughts, feelings, situations and life experiences. Something to provoke serendipity. Something to share with and contribute to the national consciousness.
My essays are nothing much. You can’t tag it with a price. Probably not worth it. But it’s something. It possesses intrinsic and extrinsic value. The former is the value I give it. The latter is the value others give it. We don’t have to agree on it.
The experiment is to commit to writing a thoughtful meditation with as much searing honesty as I can muster in Malaysia about life, the law, relationships and legal practice in Malaysia and share the harvest of my meagre insights about them that I find acceptable (not laudable) to myself. And publish it every Friday. No matter what.
It does not matter whether there is a trial, hearing, meeting or call to attend on Friday. It does not matter whether I am on holiday, sick, injured or embroiled in an intense piece of legal work. It does not matter if I have no computer, internet connection or appropriate writing instruments to work with. It does not matter if I have no ideas, no mood or have nothing ready to post on Thursday evening.
No matter, I’ll be there Friday. I wanted to be so consistent and reliable to the point if you did not see a post on Friday morning, you can presume me dead. Forget the death certificate, judge. Cause of death? Consumed by cynicism.
Friday morning is the codpiece. The centrepiece. It is what I am constantly working towards. If not, the one coming up, then the one coming up in a few weeks.
The other stuff like the call speeches, advocacy tips, From the Atelier, From the Media, etc. is secondary. They go on other days. They are the as-and-when-I-am-able or when-I-feel-like-it pieces. These are experiments too.
Of course, it does not compare with those blogs which have been going on longer, are more popular, more visible and actually earns money. There are more popular blogs, nicer ones, flashier ones, and hipper ones than mine. That’s just fine.
I am personally pleased with myself for having reached this far. I have proved to myself that I can be consistent in showing up if not always with the quality I hoped for. I know some pieces are better than others. As much as I try to keep the standard high every week, I know some feel a bit meh. That is inevitable.
I originally planned to write a Friday a week for a year. 52 weeks means 52 pieces. Can’t be that bad right? At work, as a lawyer, I am writing most of the time. So continue lah! What’s so hard?
It doesn’t quite work that way. Legal writing is different from creative writing. Legal writing is comparatively easy. The material is there, the form is there, and the logic is there. Creative writing is being confronted with a blank page, scouring my mind and heart, and putting down something worthwhile. Coming up with what to write about was at times as torturous as it was to subdue and taxidermy my thoughts.
Sometimes it comes easy. So easy that I just sit by my keyboard or notebook and catch the outpour. Sometimes it is hard to come by. So hard that, at times, I found myself perched by the keyboard in the early hours of Friday morning with nothing to post whilst wondering why I committed to silly things nobody cared about.
After I completed my first year and did my fist pump celebration, I thought, What the heck, all weighed up, I enjoyed it more than I felt tortured by it. Plus my writing became sharper, tighter, and more versatile. My long and short sentences were tauter. I incorporated the local vernacular into my writing so it better reflected how I sounded verbally. I want to sound distinctly Malaysian. I reject Grammar and Spell-Check suggestions that try to standardize how we write. Writing is an exercise for thinking and writing. I refined my ability to distil concepts and ideas as simply as possible. It improved my written submissions.
So. Oklah. Canlah. Got benefit elsewhere also. And committed to another year.
Second year in, on balance, there were more fun moments than there were torturous ones. The easier moments outnumbered the difficult ones. And I cultivated strategies to deal with the latter. Even then, as I neared the anniversary date, I wrestled again with the question of whether to continue or not. This time, however, I had more arguments in favour of continuing. There was less internal self-resistance to the idea.
More importantly, I have had many amazing experiences since starting FTBS. I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting and befriending interesting people, and a rare few that would change my life and firm. I had the pleasure of speaking to audiences I otherwise wouldn’t. It has opened up a world of opportunities that I could never imagine.
If writing weekly is what creates wonderful opportunities for serendipity to happen and enrich my life, then sign me up. It is a small fare to pay given what I receive in return.
Jalanlah.
As I celebrate this 204th post, I have decided instead of wringing my fingers each year about whether to continue or not, I shall carry on for as long as I can but check in yearly to see if I am still having fun with it. Right now, I am.
For that, I thank you. Thank you all for reading me once, twice, regularly or not. Thanks for giving me a read. I appreciate it. I hope I did not waste your time. I hope you left with something.
Thank you for stopping by, reading, commenting, and spending time with me. I appreciate your feedback, time and effort whether through the blog, social media channels or messengers. All are welcome and appreciated. As much as I hate to admit it, it is keeps me motivated.
Thank you to those who wrote to me, to those who mustered the courage to introduce themselves, to those that bothered to meet me and those that shared their stories and life with me. You have been a pleasure, privilege and blessing.
Thank you to my family, friends and colleagues for their support. Finally, but certainly not the least, thank you to my adored wife for supporting me devotedly and wholeheartedly in this mad adventure of mine. And all the mad others too.
