weird and random facts (c.f. jenn's blog)

5 random/weird facts abt. myself:

1. New hobby: arguing about philosophy with jenn on each other's blog.
2. Current mission: learning to write in short sentences with easy to understand words, so as to fit TNP style.
3. I have a huge problem with people who are fixed in their ways and are unable to multi-task.
4. An outright pessimist who refuses to believe in man's invincibility. (If man thinks he is invincible, why did he think of God?)
5. I get stressed out going shopping.

ok... now i tag rach, heidi, bernie, risse, kai hui. :)

Perhaps Love - Emptiness

Should watch the show, packed full of meaning though it is the usual triangular relationship. It highlights the emptiness that fills a money-driven world and a quest for a more exciting world, which may relegate emotions to the back-seat and ultimately destroy one.

Brilliant quotes from the songs, badly translated:
1. Shortness is no more than a blink, Length is nothing but eternity. (so apparently there should be very little difference.)
2. There is no love/ hate is impossible/ you can't grasp it/ neither can you get rid of it. (very sad, but highlights the lack of human control over destiny.)

People share common memories, but move on and lose touch. If they meet again completely changed, none will be capable of returning to who they once were, separate by the times they spent apart, however much they regret the present and yearn for the past.

Edited, cos Rach rightly pointed out that parts of it don't make sense.

Confused

School has always been very straightforward. We only have one goal in life: get good grades for everything including ccas, and god-knows-what-else is graded. Life without school means making so many more choices, some of which are rather irreversible, e.g. scholarship choices will determine your life for a good ten years. Brings to mind Paul Pennyfeather relieved about not making choices in prison while sitting in the regulated nine inches of warm water.

For all the self-professed and egoistic professions of maturity, I cannot understand how adults think, the excessively jaded and resigned cynicism. They just plod on. A good work environment vs. professional excellence? Money vs. enjoyment on the job? Have they thought about these and moved on? Or do these questions remain unresolved and are soon relegated to the idealism and naivety of youth? None of us, all trapped in the mentality of our particular age, can know.

Perhaps its the one-word solution to all Singaporean doubts: pragmatism. Consider the new Central Lending library. On basement 1, the non-fiction books rather than being arranged according to the customary dewy system, were placed according to whether the topics were deemed appealing to readers. So economics (300plus) was placed with human management(600plus) in the central aisle and everything else was clumped at the back. For all the promotion of life-long learning and the knowledge-based economy, perhaps we should be allowed to pursue our own interest in a bias-free environment. I can understand that such an arrangement is more convenient to some readers, but it encourages a singular pre-determined track. And those who choose to deviate from common interest, are completely disoriented.

Responding to jenn's post abt. the better world:
She says it will be better if people take things slower, are more forgiving and do their best not to hurt others.
I'm not sure whether she will agree, but perhaps in addition, people should be less judgmental, more concerned about their lives and the world and aim for perfection.
Maybe I am asking too much of mankind.

Cogito ergo sum: I think therefore I am. I think therefore I know I exist, but the more I think the more I am convinced that I live in a confused world (which Descartes conveniently relegated to God, beyond the confines of the first-person privilege).

anti-thesis

No living, without dying.

No happiness, without sadness.

No love, without hate.

There is no room for neutrality. In each attribute lies the rejection of its negative, thus affirming its existence. We say we exist because we may well not.

Life is unfortunately highly problematic. We seek happiness from vices and self-destruction. This is not meant to be a religious comment. We live and thus seek death. We seek happiness by creating eventual sadness. Self-love, with a result equivalent to self-hate. We destroy ourselves through smoking, drugs, gambling and alcoholism, yet we gain pleasure from it. Decadence, there is no reconciliation between a long life and a happy one. We are a confused people, living for the moment and incapable of a broader view of life, love and legacy.

boxes

Professed experts of creative thinking always tell people to "think out of the box", suggesting that boxes restrict our movement physically and the scope of our mental processes. But boxes are a human creation, and mankind have continually lived in boxes thereafters. The early cavemen lived in habitats of irregular shapes, carved out over centuries by natural forces. Humans decided to surround themselves with 4 lines, enclosing themselves and later go on to enclose animals and inanimate objects. We live in boxes from cradle to grave: the incubator, the apartment, the room, and in the end, the coffin. We have taught ourselves implicit obedience, to none other than the rules we have created for ourselves. It is a matter of organisation, which we have told ourselves is preferable to chaos. Look @ the format of this blog: I don't think any of us want the posts to be all over the place.