Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 27 February 2012 issue)

Dear Kam,
My managing director has told me repeatedly to advise him if I think he’s not doing something right. In a recent meeting, he threw a tantrum and cut everyone off in very harsh manner before storming out of the room. Is now a good time for me to speak up or should I forever hold my peace?
Mad Max

We should always speak the truth, or should we? How would you answer this question: “Tell me honestly, do I look fat in this?” Here is a list of potential answers, and they are all wrong:

1. Yes. (Are you insane?)
2. No. (Telling a lie makes you feel bad)
3. Can you define “fat”? (Clever, but it won’t help)
4. Actually, I quite like chunky. (It might be true but again, are you insane?)

There are many other potential answers but they won’t work either. Sometimes we say we want the truth but as Jack Nicholson once said in a movie, “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!”

I once saw an interview with the famous psychiatrist R D Laing where he described something that happened to one of his patients. She (the patient) arrived home early one day and found her husband in bed with another woman. She was shocked and demanded to be told why her husband was in bed with another woman. The husband was very calm and replied, “This isn’t a woman, it’s a waterfall.” The wife became insane.

Eventually, with the help of lots of therapy, she regained her sanity but the reason why she went insane was because some part of her wanted to believe that the other woman was actually a waterfall. If her husband were in bed with another woman then the wife’s whole world would be turned upside down and then torn to shreds. Not only would she have had to face the fact that her husband was cheating but she’d also have to think about where she lived, the people she knew, her family, etc. Anything and everything she believed in, all her certainties in life were challenged in that one split second, so it was easier to believe that it was a waterfall. Her brain shut down and she chose to believe it was a waterfall. But this also did not make sense to her. How could he be in bed with a waterfall? Waterfalls don’t look like a woman in a bed, do they? If that was a waterfall then what is a waterfall? What is anything? She believed in the truth and she wanted to know that she could trust her husband. And she went insane.

We all want the truth and we all want to trust. Life becomes very hard if we can’t trust anything. Sometimes it becomes easier to believe the lie. Reading the papers can be very dispiriting if we think that everything is a lie. It’s so much easier if we believe it’s actually all true. That isn’t a corruption scandal, it’s a waterfall. Okay, it’s a waterfall.

So should you tell your shouting managing director that he is being an idiot? Probably not. He probably can’t handle the truth. But all is not lost. If he is even vaguely intelligent then he probably knows he was being an idiot. Generally speaking I don’t have much respect for bosses who shout a lot, but shouting can be a useful tool if used very wisely. But if you are going to shout then you have to understand that it’s a performance — you’re putting on an act. Like any performance, it has to be used at just the right moment and only sparingly. I had a boss who used to shout all the time. At first I listened but after several occasions I started to use the time to think about what my next job would be. His daily rants became for me an opportunity for quiet contemplation.

Th is might sound like an extreme example but sometimes when I hear too much shouting I am reminded of French soldiers at the Battle of Verdun during the First World War. Every day the soldiers had to cower under artillery fire. At the end of the day, half would be dead, and the next day they would have to do it all again. They were terrified, not knowing if the next shell would kill them but they knew that there could only be one outcome — they would die. The strange thing is that many of them would eventually fall asleep. Despite the noise and death all around them, they fell asleep. There was too much terror and the noise became monotonous. Their brains shut down and they fell asleep. It’s an extreme example but too much shouting does the same thing. We switch off.

I don’t know your managing director but he might be an idiot. If he is then the answer to your question is, don’t work for idiots.

Dear Kam,
I’ve been working in different roles across various industries for almost 15 years now. I still haven’t found what I’m passionate about though. I’ll be 40 in two weeks and I feel life is passing me by. Help!
Springy Chicken

You’re not alone in this. Too many people don’t know what they want to do. I used to think that only teenagers faced this problem but it never seems to get sorted out or go away. The question keeps coming back, is this what I am supposed to do with my life? There is no easy answer.

I work on a radio documentary series called “Hear and Now in Malaysia”, which is on BFM Radio. We’ve just done an episode where we went to the Pudu area in KL and we met a tailor, a maker of paper temple offerings (I don’t know what else to call it) and a blacksmith — probably the last blacksmith.

They all say they enjoy their work. What struck me is that each of these people makes actual, physical things with their hands. At the end of a day’s work, they can look at and hold the things they have made themselves. That’s very rare these days. How many of us make something with our own hands, something we can touch and hold? The human brain is an amazingly complex tool and we can easily handle abstract concepts, but the brain is also an ancient thing. Maybe part of us is yearning to make something with our own hands, something tangible and real. An ant colony can look a lot like a big city where every tiny creature has a valuable but anonymous role. But we are not ants, we are humans.

I don’t know the answer to your question, but it’s tempting to think that we all need to make something. Maybe we can make it at our work, or maybe we can make it in our free time. Write a blog, make jewellery, grow plants, cook food, I don’t know, do anything, make something. Maybe all you need to do is go out of the office and see your products being made and being used by actual human beings so that you can say, “I made that.”

I write “Talking Edge” every week and each week it is for me a leap into the unknown. It feels good that at the end of each session I can look back at the words and say, I made that. I hope this doesn’t sound like I think I know the answer (I don’t), but I do know that everybody should have that feeling, even if it’s only once a week.

Reprinted with the kind permission of