Digging the Past

Random thoughts with unstructured scribbles.

Digging archaeological sites makes me think a lot about the past. And of course I can't help myself from not thinking about my own past. There are just some things that happened in your life that you wish had never happened, or you wish had happened differently, or maybe you wish that you will be given the chance to experience it again in the future - does the phrase 'take me back to the good old days' ring a bell?

According to a Chinese personality test that my friend shared with me, the age of my soul is 500 years old - if only my soul had lived a little bit longer it might have been able to witness the day Melaka was conquered by Afonso de Albuquerque in 1511. Wait! That was the setting for the short story 'Pintu Gerbang Masa' written by one of the high school participants of a short story competition in 2008 (It was Sayembara Menulis Cerpen organized by Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka)! I still remember the story was set up where the main character was trying to change the national history in 1511 using a 'pintu gerbang masa' - some sort of time machine that can bring him back to Melaka as how it was 500 years ago to fight against the arrival of the Portuguese. But it didn't happen, of course. Or else we are no longer seeing the entrance to the Portuguese fort; the A Famosa in Bandar Hilir after his mission achieves its victory. (Ops, I am not giving out any spoiler right?)

The unwanted past - things that we want to change so badly, or to some extent things that might be able to make us think of taking our own lives. And the only thing that can drift your mind away from actually doing that is by accepting the fact that your past is part of your history. And for this case, it is a history that cannot be deleted (totally not something like your research history on Google). To start accepting a fate is to stop lying to yourself. You're not gonna be able to not see your past through every window that reflects your present self. At the moment we don't have the capability (and probably the technology) to wipe out some memories that we would choose to be gone from our head, so why bother trying for somehing that would just make you suffer, mourning over something that could never happen?

'Everyday is a second chance'. To live, to love, to learn. Even God himself asks His servants not to give up on His blessings, why would we even give up on our own lives? There is a reason why people call experiences the best teachers. Because they are indeed the best way to learn about life. The only difference is whether you learn things the hard way or the other way. No matter whichever way life puts you through, I'm pretty sure they shape the person you currently are at the moment. What teachers are there for if not to guide you on the knowledge you need for your future life. So what past experiences are really for if not to equip you with necessary lessons that would benefit you in the future?

I might not be able to say that I am glad that some of my unwanted past happened, but at least I can keep myself calm everytime it hit me that, I survived.

Taking my hands off the unwanted and dark past might be my most desired option back then - upset and scared, every single time the memories flashed in my mind I felt like a sinner who has lost hope in renewing her faith. I wish none of them had ever happened, I wish I no longer have to be reminded of them AT ALL. But as for now, I think as long as travelling back to the old days makes me feel more grateful for the person I am at this very moment and for the place I am at now and for the life that I am currently blessed with, I don't feel that horrified anymore. Plus, isn't the whole idea of asking God for granting us husnul khatimah (the good ending - death) and keeping us away from su'ul khatimah (the bad ending) is because at the end of the day, the bygones are bygones, and now the future ending matters a thousand times more than the beginning?

And hey, I am an archaeologist. How can I take my hands off them if it's my job to dig the past in order to save the future?

Comments

Arkeologi?: Satu Perjalanan

Kira-kira lapan bulan yang lepas aku ada tulis satu ' post ' tentang subjek arkeologi, atau secara spesifiknya, aku cuba nak kongsi sikit (berdasarkan pengalaman yang tak berapa nak ada ni) apa yang ada dalam bidang arkeologi ni. Tanpa aku sangka, susulan post aku yang tak seberapa tu, aku mula dapat beberapa soalan dekat ruangan 'comments' dekat post tu pasal bidang yang aku tengah belajar ni. Mungkin selepas aku dah terangkan serba sedikit apa yang ada dalam bidang arkeologi ni, ada segelintir pembaca blog aku ni yang berminat nak menjadi ahli arkeologi. Alhamdulillah, rasa bangga pun ada, rasa terharu pun ada... TAPI Saudara sekalian, aku bukanlah orang yang sudah pun bekerja dalam bidang ni, apatah lagi orang yang berpengalaman dalam bidang arkeologi ni. Maka coretan kali ni ialah coretan secara rendah dirinya sebagai seorang hamba yang baru saja berjinak-jinak dalam bidang ni selama 15 bulan... (bukan 15 tahun ya!) Kepada sesiapa yang dah pun ba

Arkeologi?

“Archaeology is about everything.” – Mark Roberts, 11.06.2018 Memandangkan tak ramai orang buat course ni (setahu aku), mungkin orang tertanya-tanya apa yang ada dalam archaeology degree ni sebenarnya. Bila lecturer aku cakap ‘everything’, memang dia maksudkan everything . Maaf kalau agak bias sebab besar kemungkinan aku akan kongsi daripada perspektif seorang pelajar UCL, instead of pelajar arkeologi secara amnya huehue Arkeologi ni, nak dipendekkan cerita, nak kaji cara hidup orang zaman dulu. Tapi, cara nak mengkaji tu sangatlah luas, therefore this subject is very, very interdisciplinary. Hmm jadi, arkeologi ni, pasal apa sebenarnya? 1. It is about history , politics , and economics Kalau nak faham orang, kita kena cuba letak diri kita kat tempat orang tu kan? Macam itulah arkeologi. Kalau nak tahu macam mana dan kenapa certain things happened in the past , kita kena tahu sejarah orang zaman dahulu, terutama sekali sebab k

"All is Well!"

"Orang kata, big challenges are for people with big heart " This post is going to be filled with loads of quotes, and the one I just begin my post with is one of the first quotes that comes to my mind when I feel like ' everyday is a tough day at this point '. And recently it has been a quote I am reminded of the most. This academic term has been the toughest time I have ever had in my university years so far. Moments of freaking out, worrying and stressing out while trying to sort things out were COUNTLESS. But anyway, that's life (okay while writing this phrase I literally sing the Frank Sinatra song 😂 so for the fun of it, let's just put that bit here hahaha). That's life (that's life) I tell ya, I can't deny it I thought of quitting, baby But my heart just ain't gonna buy it And if I didn't think it was worth one single try I'd jump right on a big bird and then I'd fly *SIDETRACKED* (I am sorry for an early

Letting God

No incident in life is an accident. When my best friend first gave me the book 'The Art of Letting God' by Ustaz Mizi Wahid, I somehow had the gut that it will become something I really need in the not so distant future. Only a week after that I came to realise why Allah sent me the gift through her. Being a scholar of this one particular organisation (if you know, you know) for more than three years now, I have always been convinced (by my own self if not other people) that we will be guaranteed with a job by the time we graduate from universities. Not to say that I've been working less harder than I'm supposed to all this while, but I cannot deny that part of me has always been having this assurance that the beginning of my career is kinda sorted out by the time I got my degree scroll in a few years time. But...the reality turns out to be taking a whole different path; life seems to be harsher than what we initially thought. Little did I realise I was a bit dis

Oh My English!

"Are you born in Britain?" my Romanian teacher once asked me. "Is English your first language?" asked my British friend, Alex, a friend I made from my summer school. "Did you go to any English tuition class?" asked Ong, my internship colleague. Disclaimer: do not put a high expectation on me! I can assure you that my English is not that good... well, the fact that I had to repeat my IELTS last time is one of the proofs hehe But I just feel like looking back at how I get to speak in English, (though not really fluently, just enough to be able to have a conversation with other people) given the fact that I am such a kampung girl and English is undoubtedly something very, very foreign to me. My family speak full Malay at home. My dad speaks Perak dialect in his hometown, while my mum speaks Javanese with her family. So maybe for the sake of simplicity, all of us have been using standard Malay as our first language despite living in Terenggan

the short wanderer

Search This Blog