On the falling ringgit

When you are earning ringgit and sending SG$ back home for wifey and kids and the ringgit seems to be falling like a knife and cutting thru everything…it makes you wonder. I work so hard…but get so little back.

I work so hard….but get so little back!

I work so hard….but get so little back!

You look at this strange thing right before you. You see it unfurl like some terrible creature that you have never seen before hatching out of its egg. You ask yourself, what is this? It’s not supposed to be like that?

How it works is written in stone dummy. Or at least that’s what everyone says and probably believes – you take risk, work hard and it all comes together…it always does…it’s a law like gravity, well it’s supposed to be like that…but the truth is very different.

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‘I feel the pressure. I mean I don’t feel it, like you would a breeze gently brushing your cheeks. No….I feel it deep within the marrow of my bones like a sick man who suffers from some debilitating flesh eating disease. Only the sick can feel the weight of clothes…there is like no margin for error this time round.

Everything is strung so fucking tight as a drum…she’s tight like a virgin this time round…all the moves just has to be just precisely right. No margin for error…none whatsoever. Right timing. Right moves. Right this. Right that, so that it all goes off like one of those computer timed fireworks display.

Bang….bang…..bang.

Look at the fair side. So far the moves I’ve cut are all good to go!

They’re all copper clad good! Professional. No corrections, just like a pro bank heist. Everything passed from the realm of theory to reality with a fidelity of 100%. Like I said, no corrections needs.

Now, IF I can keep this pace of cutting all the right moves for the next six months….Then I stand a chance to fight another day, I will be able to hold out against this bone crunching siege machine.

No doubt. She will kick me black and blue…Mother Nature…that bitch when she goes ballistics. The tanked out commodities market. Yes that would splay me with a body blow…the falling ringgit et al. I will have to roll with the punches this time, but let’s look at the bright side….at least I don’t go down for the count!

No I don’t! Not if I can keep gambling my way to the end when this perfect runs right out of steam…there I will be and watch it’s wake cross over the brow of the horizon. To see it all the before…during and after of it all.

Six months more of cutting all right moves…six months of getting it righter than right every time…bang…bang…bang…one shot, one kill!

It’s given, I’ve be in lose lose territory soon. The commodities market is all shot up. Pain there is inevitable. Sure I will try to lose small. Best I can. But if I can hold out for six months by consistently cutting the right moves, my hope is suffering will at least be optional.

Possibly. No! Yes, I can ride her like the way I once went right thru a storm called impossible.

You know one of those epic storms when a curling wall of water that goes both sides as far as the eye can trace out stands so tall that it even sucks in all the light from the skies leaving you with just a cinder of hope. That’s how it feels like to be there when your guli’s go right up your Adam’s apple – the pressure that is…

But look at the fair side. You just sprayed the land and fertilized a week back ago. Two good moves. On every occasion you read the weather like a gypsy dealing tarot cards. Followed by three rounds of gentle drizzly rains, that tops it by every known definition of the vocabulary reserved for the master farmer – you even timed it all so well, that you know deep down it’s one of those epic runs. You know like when you’re late for a ball breaking one in a lifetime meet and on that day, all the traffic lights are just green…green all the way. So green that you can just open her up and slice thru traffic like a red hot butter knife. Well this time round my run so far is like one of those sorts where I know the fertilizer stays and goes where it’s supposed to go, to nourish only the trees.

I need every cent to hit the mark…to just go in, in a neat line ….cling cling cling like one of those slot machines when the right time comes, all the fruits will line up.

I just need the rains to continue for another month longer. I don’t need a lot of rain, just a bit more. But it’s turning hot now and from the looks of it the rains seem to be breaking out at sea – maybe I misjudged it all. Maybe the rains are just going to stop completely….it’s after all an El Niño year. You know the big one….you know the one that’s like a bogeyman to every farmer.

She’s too big to fight head on. Way too big! All you can do is let her past you by the best you can like one of those raging bulls tearing at full speed towards a matador – no…no…it’s not painless. It’s like getting beaten up by ten men. It’s a storm. You feel the blows. You curl up into a ball. There are no thoughts…not even fear. It’s like everything is suddenly obliterated by a white blinding light…then it all grows quiet.

You’re still there rolling around the ground with ten men beating the shit out of you. But in that place where it’s bathed by a suffused wooly white light….you’re just standing there…feeling so peaceful…..so very peaceful and quiet, it’s as if you have managed to transform your whole being into a tear drop that rolls down the cheek of time. That is how it feels when this giant wave that sucks up all the light crashes down on my tiny plastic boat…I feel the pressure. I tell myself, cool moves….cool moves. My hands move fast and purposefully, I know the sail is good, I’ve loosened her just enough to take a pummeling by the crashing waves without ripping…now I wank the ropes hard to tack a wind to get out of this shit hole.

I see an opening, but I can’t tell as my eyes sting…clear blue skies framed against dark angry mountains of waves, it’s only a sliver…just a fleeting glimpse….now it’s all but squeezed out by another tall iron wave heading my way. But I know…I saw it, it’s there just somewhere behind the crest of this big wave that seems to making a claw like when angry women curl their nails. I know she’s there, maybe two or three miles hard starboard. So far hard that I literally have to spin my plastic boat around at right angles. I tack the wind hard. I pull till the ratchets and pulleys begin to squeal, then the sensation of the forward glide kicks in. I know now, the prow is slicing thru the swelling waves like a torpedo. I’ll make it. That’s what I always tell myself. I’ll make it to the other side. I am getting closer to the edge of the storm…soon I am going to punch right thru it. Anytime now. Meanwhile the plastic boat races ahead as the winds billow her sails – then suddenly another giant wave hits and this time round, both the skies and you get sucked into it’s darkened belly….and it just goes right on like this again and again…there’s no end. You’re just there getting tossed around like one of those things that roll so fast there is the faint smell of burning rubber and everything is just a big fat blur. Like I said, it’s just like getting a beating of your life by ten burly men.

But I know everything will be alright soon…all I have to do is wait for that white wooly light to turn everything quiet…so quiet that I am just running in the wide open fields like when I am dreaming…you know the sort of dream where the skies are always blue like postcards and the all the colors just pop out!

Soon the white light will take me to that place.

Meanwhile I just need ride this storm out. I need to hang in there and cut all the right moves….cool moves….cool moves…..cool moves, that’s the only way to make it to the other side.

Just absolutely zero margin for error – the ultimate professionals game of cerebral fitness and bad ass Lady Luck lah! Had I known it would all come down to this – I would have invested in rented tuxedo and stolen Maserati to get a VIP pass to the baccarat table in the casino de monte cristo, instead of being a farmer.

I mean if one is going to end up playing sudden death Russian roulette. I much rather do it sipping dry martinis and feasting on house caviar, why even bother reenacting the life of the man of constant sorrow.

What the hell is really going on man? I don’t understand how things even got so messed up!