I’m Like That What!

The big news today comes from across the causeway where Malaysia’s once and future Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad submitted his resignation to the King. The move is being seen as a political ploy by Dr. Mahathir to break up his pact with his former deputy and nemesis, Mr. Anwar Ibrahim.

I’m old enough to remember a time when Mr. Anwar was Dr. Mahathir’s loyal deputy, who was waiting patiently for the old man to retire and to take the hot seat. Mr. Anwar was in many ways, the ideal Malay politician, pious enough to appeal to the Kampong folk but at the same time international enough in his outlook to appeal to the international finance community. Then the Asian Financial Crisis happened and Mr. Anwar fell out with the old man, who had him arrested and sent to jail on charges of sodomsing his driver.  Mr. Anwar spent more than two decades in the wilderness of opposition and then, suddenly, was gifted with an alliance with Dr. Mahathir, when the later fell out with Mr. Najib.

When the opposition won a surprise election in 2018, it was assumed that Dr. Mahathir would take the resigns of power until Mr. Anwar had finished his jail sentence and was ready to take over. In the meantime, Mr. Anwar’s wife, Dr. Wan Azizah would serve as Deputy Prime Minister.

Now that this seems unlikely, the one question people should ask is – did one expect anything else? The sayings that come to mind are – “A leopard never changes its spots,” and “you can’t teach and old dog new tricks,” come to mind. Mr. Anwar has been proverbially screwed by Dr. Mahathir before and at 94 (Dr. Mahathir being a very fit and sprightly 90 plus-year old) one can only expect Dr. Mahathir to act as he’s always done.

I think of today’s news because it reminds me of an old truism that people act as their nature has made them. I think of David Ogilvy, the founder of Ogilvy & Mather, who said that the thing we have to focus on is, “Unchanging man.”

When you look through the prism of “unchanging man” you’ll come to accept that there is no such thing as a person that you cannot trust. You can trust everybody to act according to their nature. One merely needs to read people well and to understand their nature in order to understand how they’ll act. If you complain “So and so cheated me,” or so and so “broke my trust,” its probably a reflection of your inability to read their nature rather than the failings of their character. In an ideal world, everyone would be trust worthy and brave and wonderful, but this isn’t an ideal world. If you expect an eunuch like Donald Trump (who has a track record of being a eunuch) to stand up to the likes of Vladimir Putin (who has a record of being a killer), you’re kidding yourself. Mr. Trump has been a sniveling coward and to expect him to be otherwise is not his fault but yours for expecting him to be what he is clearly not.

I’m reminded of the time I tried to tell Fleshball to behave in public. Her immediate reaction was to tell me, “I’m like that what!” She was right. The fool was me. I thought a proud street girl would be somewhat docile and well behaved in “polite public.” The question is – why did I expect her to be anything to be other than what she was.

Before you deal with people, get to know them. Understand the essence of their nature and how they became who they were. Once you do that, you’ll find that you can implicitly trust them to act as their nature dictates.