The Caution Series

I stumbled across Loyar Burok a while ago.

Most of the contributors are members of the legal profession who, rest assured, do not take themselves too seriously.

Some of the postings are informative in a lawyerly way, some entertaining and some thought-provoking.

I've always liked the thought-provoking ones - they fulfil a need in me for discourse and disagreement.

The Caution trilogy appears to be a singular effort by one Aston Paiva, who promptly manages to offend me in his 3rd line of introduction by patronisingly encouraging readers "to keep an open mind".

As if everyone else walks around with a closed mind to amuse himself.

But I consoled myself with the notion that I had every right to be offended as had he every right to offend me. And proceeded to read on.

I discovered that all three of them are astoundingly articulate and spectacularly brilliant. You would do well to read them in their entirety:

Caution: Easily Offended!
Caution: Easily Shocked!
Caution: Easily Disturbed!

Do not expect to agree with everything he says.

For one, I anticipate the Christians and Muslims frowning at the verses he has - in some cases - taken out of context.

Interestingly, the Christian verses that he finds offensive are in fact, the very ones that have once prompted me to question the veracity of the Christian faith.

Like him, I believe nothing is above and beyond question.

And being humans, the least we can do is to conceed that not everyone shares our beliefs and values.

..being offended is a good thing. It encourages you to assess yourself. To ask yourself why you feel offended? To inquire into the root of your distraught. To locate the source of your distress. You are forced to think..

-Aston Paiva

In light of the Asian mentality of not wanting to offend, particularly the Malaysian brand of refraining from broaching "sensitive" issues, I can agree with feeling.