OK guys i'm going to have a bout of textual diarrhoea, so if you guys are not ready for it please stop reading now!!!

If anyone of you had read Stephen Cohen (aka the 7 Habits person), you will probably be familiar with this. "Begin with the end in mind". In his book, he asks people to carry out a simple mental exercise involving visualisation. If any botak is feeling a tinge of inspiration, now is a good time to try this exercise. You are supposed to visualise your own funeral (touch wood), everything from the way you are dressed, to the decoration of wherever you may be. Most importantly, visualise who is present, and what they are saying about your life. What would you want them to be saying?

Paulo Coelho, in his book THE PILGRIMAGE, had to undergo one similarly morbid visualisation exercise on his religious pilgrimage along the Road To Santiago. He was supposed to imagine that he was lying in his coffin, but he could see everything that was happening. People throwing soil and offering flowers to him. Relatives weeping as he was lowered into the ground. He even described the worms beginning to eat through his flesh, and all these while, he had full conciousness of what was going on.

I guess there must really be something about dying... even self help gurus and pilgrims seeking enlightenment, they are all borrowing inspiration from it. To the self help guru, death is an end, and how you want that end to be will be determined by how you live. To the pilgrim, there is no way to experience life if you have not experienced death. Personally, i began to see the whole picture fall into place last sunday night.

I never had good imagination, so visualisation exercises were to me, just mambo jambo bullshit. But on sunday night, i saw for myself what Cohen and Coelho were trying to say. I was at the wake of my OG facilitator. From the distant carpark where i stood for most of the night, i looked into the parlour. People walking up to pay their last respects. People crying. Parents and relatives moving in robotic, expressionless motions. Friends gathering outside, speaking in whispered hushes. The drone of Buddhist Prayers. It struck me how life can really be so fragile. All your years of planning for your career,your graduation, your masters, that fashionable car, that big bungalow, all brought to an abrupt halt. To think we've taken for granted that we will surely graduate from Uni... hur... this made me re-examine my beliefs straight away.

On behalf of the BOTAKGANG, i express our deepest sympathy for his family and friends. May he find peace where he may be.