Happiness is a state of mind

It saddens me that the best thing that happened to our local internet content, a cute, amazing, with the ability to talk, (not-so) ordinary cat aptly named #kucinghappy, announced his retirement last week.

This initiative by Bank Simpanan Nasional (BSN) as part of their 40th anniversary celebrations has got to be one of the best, tongue-in-cheek social media campaigns ever by a Malaysian company.

Far from only rejuvenating the BSN brand and popularising it with the youth and the masses, with 99,999 people successfully "happy-ed", #kucinghappy also subconsciously reminds us all that there are bigger, more important things in life that will make us happy other than the gilded dreams of material gains, travel, money and wealth.

Aptly, a week before his retirement, #kucinghappy gave charity to those who are in dire need of help. A cute mascot with funny, satirical responses to the public's almost mundane wishes every week, who also give back to the community?

Whoever's behind this social media campaign are geniuses who deserve awards! Why did it have to end?

In the words of #kucinghappy himself, "All good things (must) come to an end... and happiness comes from inside (ourselves)."

Which brings me to real life in Malaysia.

Yes, we as Malaysians are spared tragedies and wars, open violence and most of us are doing okay. We are in peace and apparently non-extremists.

I am happy for all that. We have the best food in the world, heck, we even have a university that produces the first ghost-busting anti-hysteria kit!

As a scientist working with sexually-transmitted infections, which is a taboo topic in itself, and more often than not, struggles with funding because our research benefits marginalised communities like people who use drugs, men who have sex with men, transgenders and female sex workers; and of course only 49.5% of the Malaysian population who are women; I have to congratulate Universiti Malaysia Pahang for such breakthrough and nïche research.

Really, ruddy brilliant strategy for sustainable funding.

On top of having to push papers to satisfy bureaucracy, academics in Malaysia often struggle with our workload and the stress to conduct "world-class" research, all the while educating brilliant young minds to produce graduates who are employable; and, to boost our university's rankings in the many ranking lists out there.

There is no money to make in academia, and with a bloated civil service, most academics are working on a contractual basis on civil servant's pay.

Of course, one can make more money in private universities or as a consultant to industry, but choosing to be an academic in the first place means, at least to me, that one dedicate one's life work towards encouraging knowledge, advancing science and doing good in the world.

Being an academic makes me happy. It makes me feel like I have a purpose in life. But then again, I am ever the naïve optimist.

Yet, when academics like Associate Prof Azmi Sharom is charged with the Sedition Act, fellow TMI columnist Dr Khoo Ying Hooi investigated for her column, and a debate on moderation that was supposed to be held at an academic institution cancelled at the 11th hour by the university's administration, I can't help but feel unhappy.

It seems that our freedom of expression is constantly eroded, and our ability to discuss and debate the hard issues in an intellectual, academic setting non-existent.

Instead, we can all talk about sex in a degrading way towards women, an anti-hysteria kit, accepting hudud law because it's divine, whether a church should have a cross and who among our leaders understand or do not understand GST.

Waking up every day to such a cacophony in real life, it is no surprise that I got addicted to #kucinghappy in the first place.

I digress. Happiness is a state of mind and all of us find our own avenues to be happy. I run to deal with stresses in life; and hopefully there will not be guidelines as to women in sports akin to the recently released entertainment guidelines.

Or should I knock on wood in case I spoke too soon? Maybe it is time for an anti-nonsensical-guidelines kit?

Malaysia has the foundation to be a great country. We are blessed with natural resources, a mixing bowl of diverse people, and overall, a caring and giving society.

We have intelligentsia - there are too many to name but I would like to highlight the women: Datuk Mazlan Othman, an astrophysicist, Dr Betty Sim Kim Lee, a scientist working on malaria research, and Prof Adeeba Kamarulzaman, a leading name in harm reduction and HIV/AIDS - and many brilliant young minds with their minds and hearts in the right place like another fellow TMI columnist, Ooi Kok Hin.

It will be a really sad day if we regress and dumb ourselves down, dismantling our great foundation of a country and promote silence, blind obedience and injustice.

In my on-going struggle to be happy, I hope I will not see that Malaysia... instead, I wish for a Malaysia that is progressive, just, open for consultative processes, and inclusive.

Is that too much to wish for? – May 6, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.