Remember a few years back when we were all smug and haughty at the impending arrival of Malaysia on the world map?

The KL Tower, the Twin Towers, the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC), the Bukit Jalil Sports Complex and even the Bakun Dam. All these mega-projects - as we called them - being planned one after another or even being put up concurrently.

Day in and day out in the papers, we were being fed news of how things in Malaysia were getting bigger and better. On TV, wonderful visuals of those monuments filled our screens and we sat proudly in our patriotism.

What happened next? Oh, one man happened. A certain Mr George Soros happened.

Imagine if you would right now, a room called Southeast Asia. In this room, there are tables called Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei ... etc. And on these tables, is a house of cards. One on each.

And here we all are, neighbours in Southeast Asia, all stacking up our own house of cards. Then a great earthquake happens. Let's call this earthquake 'economic crisis'. It's so great that all the houses of cards fall. Except the one on the table labelled Malaysia.

Malaysia Boleh!

Now, when the earthquake happened, we lifted the table and tried our best to balance it ... "Ooohh, left a bit, right, oh, your corner is dipping ... oh, oh, oh, ... there it's stopped ..." and we put the table down ... our house of cards is a little worse for wear, all crooked, but still standing.

We let out a great cheer, Malaysia Boleh! or something to that effect. Next? We go right ahead and pile our house of cards higher and higher, never once bothering with the shaken foundations.

"It will hold," we tell ourselves and greedily we speed towards the roof of the room we're in.

Remember those days? Yes, yes, full of optimism, we landed blindly into the stock market crash, the currency fall, the Anwar issue and scrutiny from the rest of the world. Oh, how spectacularly we arrived on the world map.

And now, full of optimism, we pull ourselves out of the pit we landed in. Sailing round the world, climbing Mount Everest, Formula One races. "Anything you can do, I can do, too!" was our lusty battle cry. Still is.

Here we are, walking into a new dawn. "If we survived once, we'll survive again" ... and again?

Vicious cycle

Folks, our foundation is shaken. And it shows, it shows. Think about it. Amidst our drive to the top, to becoming a 'developed country', we've had demonstrations, inductees to the Internal Security Act (ISA) Hall of Fame and recently, the Petaling Jaya Selatan debacle - oh, what a mess that was.

Amidst our push to recovery, we have neglected healing the hurt, easing the pain. Instead, we pile on the yoke, add to the burden, build, build, build. We'd have made the Egyptian pyramid builders envious.

Things aren't getting better. I wish they were. But it feels like one heckuva vicious circle. When the next wave hits the shore, when the next earthquake strikes, will our house of cards still stand and keep on standing? Survival is one thing, stability is another.

Which reminds me - what happened to 2020?

SHANNON TEOH is a student at the Multimedia University where he says "he is willing to learn". He confesses to being an avid cynic of the very same country he's "grateful he was born in".