It's late at night, and looks like it just me, an imaginary tequila, and my trusty Eileen with which I use to write all these things here. To be had, I have actually been doing a lot of observing in between all these posts, and I suppose it is time to just unload the entire barrage of words here to cleanse it out of my mind.
V guvax V nz fgnegvat gb unir n cubovn gbjneqf gur ragver pbaprcg bs vagvzngr eryngvbafuvcf. V qba'g zvaq unatvat bhg jvgu crbcyr, pbzcyrgr fgenatref rira, ohg jura vg pbzrf gb npghnyyl orvat jvgu n pbhcyr bs crbcyr V xabj jryy rabhtu, V fgneg gb ybfr sbphf ba jung vf ng unaq, naq fgneg gb eha bhg bs guvatf gb fnl, juvpu, vs lbh unir xabja zr sebz n cerivbhf yvsr, vf fbzrguvat gung vf dhvgr vzcbffvoyr gb fdhner jvgu. V'z abg ernyyl pregnva jul guvf cubovn vf pbzvat hc, ohg nf hfhny, V unir n srj gurbevrf.
Gurbel ahzore bar vf gung vg vf n qrsrafr zrpunavfz gung V unir orra erylvat ba gb xrrc zr fnar rire fvapr zl rkrf oebxr hc jvgu zr arneyl n lrne cyhf onpx (jbj, vg fher vf ybat ntb). Fgnegrq gb abg frr gur arrq sbe gung fb-pnyyrq ``fvtavsvpnag bgure'', naq gung cebonoyl genafsbezrq vagb n trareny ncngul gbjneqf guvf jubyr zrff.
Gurbel ahzore gjb vf gung V nz fbzrjung nssrpgrq ol gur crbcyr naq gurve eryngvbafuvcf nebhaq zr, naq ernyvfr gung na vagvzngr eryngvbafuvc vf whfg fbzrguvat gung V pnaabg or vaibyirq va. Zbfg bs gur crbcyr jubz V frr jub ner va fgnoyr eryngvbafuvcf graq gb unir gur birenyy srryvat bs bireg obevatarff---gurer vf uneqyl nal rkhorenag ernpgvbaf, yvggyr fcbagnarbhf npgvba, enaqbz urnegl ynhtugre naq gur yvxr. Abar, anqn. Vg'f nyy fb... dhvrg naq nqhyg-yvxr---rirelbar frrzf gb or fb frevbhf nyy gur qnza gvzr. Vs lbh nfx zr, vs guvf vf jung orvat va n eryngvbafuvc vf nyy nobhg, V guvax V'q engure or qrnq guna gb or pnhtug va fhpu n ynpxyhfger fvghngvba bs snxr znghevgl; V nz ol angher zber vadhvfvgvir naq fcbagnarbhf, naq vs lbh jnag zr gb or punvarq gb n dhvrg yvggyr yvsr, vg whfg vfa'g tbvat gb unccra.
Gurbel ahzore guerr vf gung V unir fgnegrq gb frr ubj nyy gurfr vagvzngr eryngvbafuvcf pna tb jebat, naq gur nsgrezngu gurl oevat. V haqrejrag n pbhcyr bs oernx hcf ba zl bja, fb V'z jryy njner bs gur xvaqf bs fvqr rssrpgf gurer. Ohg gura gurer ner gubfr jub qvibeprq nsgre fbzr gvzr va zneevntr, naq gurer ner gubfr jub frrz gb unir ceboyrzf va gurve zneevntr qhr gb n fhccbfrq ybfvat bs gur fb-pnyyrq ``fcnex''. Frrzf gb zr gung guvf jubyr vagvzngr eryngvbafuvc guvat vf whfg n snepr bs fbegf.
Gurbel ahzore sbhe vf gung V guvax V nz, va trareny, orpbzvat zber naq zber nagvfbpvny va angher. Nyernql V svaq zlfrys tenivgngvat njnl sebz uhzna pbagnpg, naq rira va gur pnfrf jurer V qb unir pbagnpg jvgu bgure crbcyr, V unir xrcg gur gjb fcurerf bs crefbany naq ohfvarff snveyl pyrne sebz rnpu bgure. Gur trareny ynpx bs n ``crefbany'' fvqr vf nyfb yvxryl gb or gur ernfba jul V nz svaqvat gur jubyr vqrn bs na vagvzngr eryngvbafuvc zrnavatyrff, naq bs pbhefr vg ornef erzvaqvat gung ``vagvzngr eryngvbafuvc'' urer zrnaf zber guna whfg oblsevraq-tveysevraq eryngvbafuvcf---vg vapyhqrf sevraqfuvcf nf jryy.
Gurbel ahzore svir vf gung zl fb-pnyyrq sevraqf unir qevsgrq shegure njnl sebz zr. Nyy gur sbyxf jubz V unq bapr pnyyrq zl ``oebgure'' be ``orfg sevraq'' ner ab ybatre va pbagnpg jvgu zr, naq rira jura jr qb zrrg naq gnyx, vg vf uvtuyl fhcresvpvny, jvgu zr hapbafpvbhfyl gheavat ba gur fanex naq qbqtvat nalguvat gung vf ersreevat gb zr. Uryy, ng guvf cbvag V nz qnevat rabhtu gb pynvz gung V qba'g ernyyl unir nalbar jubz V pbasvqr va nalzber---gurer ner gubfr jub vtaber zr, gubfr jub bhgevtug ner naablrq ng zr rabhtu gung V zvtug pbafvqre ungr, naq gubfr jubfr yvirf unir pnhtug hc jvgu gurz gb gur cbvag gung gurl whfg arrq gb qrny jvgu gurz vafgrnq bs gnyxvat jvgu zr. Sbe gur ynfg-zbfg glcr bs crefba, vg vf cnegyl zl snhyg, orpnhfr V qba'g ernyyl unir nalguvat gb fnl/jnag gb fnl nalguvat nobhg zlfrys ng nyy.
Ng guvf cbvag, nyy V unir ner gurbevrf ba jung vf tbvat ba, ohg V qba'g ernyyl xabj jung gur urpx vf jebat jvgu zr. Znlor V'z birejbexrq/birefgerffrq nf jung Ivpgbe fnvq, be znlor V'z whfg gheavat vagb n qbhpuront jvgubhg npgviryl ernyvfvat vg. Ohg jungrire vg vf, vg jbhyq nccrne gung V'z snfg trggvat zl jvfu bs tbvat vg nybar---zhpu bs gur jbeyq unf nyernql sbefnxra zr, naq V'z abg ernyyl nyy gung rntre gb tnva onpx nyy gung V unir fhccbfrqyl ybfg, sbe fbzr qnza ernfba.
Fbzrgvzrf V jbaqre gb zlfrys, vs rirelguvat gung V unir qbar fb sne vf ernyyl jbegu vg ng gur raq. Rnpu gvzr n qnl cnffrf, V svaq gung zl ybsgvre vqrnyf sebz gur cnfg ner snfg rebqvat njnl. V bapr gubhtug gung zl nvz va yvsr jnf gb pbagevohgr cbfvgviryl gb fbpvrgl, ohg gur byqre V trg, gur zber V ernyvfr ubj fbpvrgl vf ernyyl shpxrq hc, naq gung bar zvfrenoyr zr jvgubhg anzr abe jrnygu pna'g qb nalguvat ng nyy. V hfrq gb guvax V jnf zbenyyl hcevtug, ohg nf gvzr jrag ol, V fgnegrq gb abg tvir n fuvg nobhg gur zbenyvgl bs guvatf, cersreevat gb guvax va grezf bs hgvyvgl vafgrnq. V guvax vg unf pbzr gb n cbvag jurer V fgneg gb unir na vqragvgl pevfvf---whfg jung gur uryy nz V? V qba'g xabj nobhg bguref, ohg V guvax V'z fgvyy tenccyvat jvgu guvf dhrfgvba fbzrjung, naq V ubcr gung bar qnl V jvyy svther guvf bhg.
*tears hair a little*
Most days I just feel tired. Tired of the drama, tired of the rat race. Tired of having to deal with people, both the smart and the stupid, tired of dealing with machines, both working and not. Tired of dragging my rotting carcass to work, tired of dragging it back. Tired of unconsciously comapring myself with others, tired of being stood up and pushed around. Tired of being maligned, tired of being yelled at for no damn reason. Tired of being tired all the damn time.
Perhaps the answer I am seeking can be found through another way.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
Koop Island Blues
With little delay:
What drew me to this piece is partly due to the smooth caribbean jazzy feel of the instrumentation, and of course the wistful lyrics. The first time I actually paid attention to the lyrics, I found that it was quite relevant to what I had been experiencing for quite a while. In some ways, we never seem to break out of the mold of our first few lovers---time and time again we end up being attracted to someone of a similar nature as those we've been with before, as irrational as it seems.
Very simple lyrics, but with something a little more deep than the usual ``lost love'' genre songs.
Koop Island Blues——Koop featuring Ane BrunLyrics courtesy of www.lyricsmania.com.
Hello my love
It's getting cold on this island
I'm sad alone
I'm so sad on my own
The truth is
We were much too young
Now I'm looking for you
Or anyone like you
We said goodbye
With the smile on our faces
Now you're alone
You're so sad on your own
The truth is
We run out of time
Now you're looking for me
Or anyone like me
Na na na na...
Hello my love
It's getting cold on this island
I'm sad alone
I'm so sad on my own
The truth is
We were much too young
Now I'm looking for you
Or anyone like you
What drew me to this piece is partly due to the smooth caribbean jazzy feel of the instrumentation, and of course the wistful lyrics. The first time I actually paid attention to the lyrics, I found that it was quite relevant to what I had been experiencing for quite a while. In some ways, we never seem to break out of the mold of our first few lovers---time and time again we end up being attracted to someone of a similar nature as those we've been with before, as irrational as it seems.
Very simple lyrics, but with something a little more deep than the usual ``lost love'' genre songs.
Malignment
If there is one thing in the world that I allow myself to hate, it would have to be the idea of being maligned.
I hate being maligned. I have said this before a good four-ish years ago, but things have a strange way of repeating themselves in cycles, whether or not we realise it. Being maligned is one of the most annoying and asinine acts that people can do to me. I can tolerate anger, I can tolerate hate. But I absolutely cannot tolerate being maligned for something I did not do.
Being maligned is probably one of the worst kinds of feelings to go through, particularly when the incident in which one is maligned was actually something quite benign in nature. Indeed, there is a Chinese saying of ``听者有意，说者无'', i.e. the listener listens with a certain intent in mind while the speaker had no such intention. Humans have a strange way of picking what they want to hear, and most times it does not help when they already have a preconceived notion of what you are, and thus take everything with that prejudiced perspective in mind.
I suppose that's why I've started to not give a damn about other people and their thoughts, preferring to think simple and literal, and to have an overall expression level that is no better than a moron. All the fancy words in the world will not change any person's mental model of who you might be.
I hate being maligned. I have said this before a good four-ish years ago, but things have a strange way of repeating themselves in cycles, whether or not we realise it. Being maligned is one of the most annoying and asinine acts that people can do to me. I can tolerate anger, I can tolerate hate. But I absolutely cannot tolerate being maligned for something I did not do.
Being maligned is probably one of the worst kinds of feelings to go through, particularly when the incident in which one is maligned was actually something quite benign in nature. Indeed, there is a Chinese saying of ``听者有意，说者无'', i.e. the listener listens with a certain intent in mind while the speaker had no such intention. Humans have a strange way of picking what they want to hear, and most times it does not help when they already have a preconceived notion of what you are, and thus take everything with that prejudiced perspective in mind.
I suppose that's why I've started to not give a damn about other people and their thoughts, preferring to think simple and literal, and to have an overall expression level that is no better than a moron. All the fancy words in the world will not change any person's mental model of who you might be.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
SMS Musing #1
One day while waiting for someone, I started writing a fragment on my cellphone using the SMS interface. Here it is:
And some days you wonder if life were a dream, and that everything that you ever knew were merely illusions. It becomes hard to decipher what truly is real and what isn't, and slowly, you learn to just accept whatever is present before you. But each time a deja vu strikes, you cannot help but wonder if there is more than meets the eye, that something somewhere is noticing your confusion and having a good laugh about it. The surreal fog of supposed truth always keeps you wrapped firmly within its cold grasp, as though it were the only thing that remains important and unchanging. Wonder turns to reluctant acceptance, and slowly the thought of ever questioning reality fades slowly away, never to return until yet another strange day. Perhaps this is the ultimate destiny of humanity, where one day we will indeed run out of new questions to ask.Obviously I didn't send this out to anyone/anywhere, but I thought it interesting enough to transcribe it for here.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Waiting
What can be the most annoying thing that one has to put up with in real life?
The answer is surprisingly simple---it is the waiting. Waiting can be thought of as an unintended break; a break because while waiting, there is little else that one can do, and unintended because most of the time, it is the circumstances that dictate we end up waiting.
It does not help that in this time and age that we live in, the concept of ``instant communication'' is the norm. No longer does one find it normal to wait for nearly two days for a reply to something that was asked---anything that does not get a reply in five hours becomes a cause of concern. Much to my chagrin, I have found myself falling into this category as well.
My patience seems to run really low these days, among other things. It's almost as though I can no longer tolerate the little lapses that people make, and that includes myself. Maybe that's where all the communication break down begins...
Alright, enough ranting. I'm already sick of how short it is.
The answer is surprisingly simple---it is the waiting. Waiting can be thought of as an unintended break; a break because while waiting, there is little else that one can do, and unintended because most of the time, it is the circumstances that dictate we end up waiting.
It does not help that in this time and age that we live in, the concept of ``instant communication'' is the norm. No longer does one find it normal to wait for nearly two days for a reply to something that was asked---anything that does not get a reply in five hours becomes a cause of concern. Much to my chagrin, I have found myself falling into this category as well.
My patience seems to run really low these days, among other things. It's almost as though I can no longer tolerate the little lapses that people make, and that includes myself. Maybe that's where all the communication break down begins...
Alright, enough ranting. I'm already sick of how short it is.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
The Outdoor Life
For a person who has been largely confined to a mostly indoor existence, it would appear quite strange that I would partake in a large variety of outdoor activities. While I'm not an extreme outdoor activities person, over the course of these few months, I realise that I am actually more sporty than I realise I ever could be.
Circumstances back in the day dictated that I had to refrain from strenuous physical activity to protect myself against flare-ups of my dermatitis. It was notsomuch that I was that sensitive to the problems, but that due to the whole regimented nature in which all the physical activities were conducted (school classes, military training), I was unable to take steps towards alleviating the conditions that would cause a flare-up all in the name of conformity. But now, free from all these arbitrarily designed limitations, I am free to pursue this side of human life that I have been robbed off in childhood.
It might come as a surprise to some that I am actually practising Aikido on a very regular basis. There is something about taking breakfalls, throwing and pinning people that make it a very good stress reliever. Having to focus one's weight into a single point has a way of literally maintaining the balance of the body, and all the conditioning exercises that precede each training session has seen their effects on my body. Not only do I have more stamina now than before, I have found that it becomes much easier to concentrate my strength to whatever task I need, with much less incidence of injury due to improper positioning or wrongful application of force. Aikido or any other martial art has a strange way of increasing one's spatial awareness, and that alone has made it much easier to enjoy the outdoor life.
Apart from being the occasional cyclist, most of my outdoor life activities revolve around the activity of Geocaching. Geocaching is hardly a new phenomenon since it has been around for more than a decade by now, but it is only recently that I have the wherewithal to actually pursue it with more aggression and enthusiasm than before. Partly due to the effects of some of the more enthusiastic geocachers that I have converted, and partly because I could attach some faces to the names that I see in the online geocache logs, my activities with regards to this has increased by quite a fair bit. To say that geocaching is a waste of time is not quite correct, since it is with geocaching that one would have the opportunity to go around a location, enjoying the natural sights and sounds and company, with the ultimate reward of finding that elusive geocache. Indeed, I would not have bashed through jungles, spelunked, traipsed over low tide beaches and the like if I weren't geocaching. Some people question the rewards of geocaching, often asking questions to the tune of ``so what happens when you find a geocache?''. To ask such a question seems to defeat the whole purpose of geocaching to begin with---the reward is not about the geocache you find, but the journey it took you to get there. In fact, one of the tenets of a geocache hide is that if there was nothing else interesting about the place where the geocache was hidden, perhaps it was not a good idea to hide it there in the first place.
But the outdoor life didn't come completely from geocaching of course. Ever since I was confined to the indoors I have always had that romantic view of adventures all over the world, travelling and exploring places that are less trodden, seeking for interesting formations, architectural ruins and the like. The books that I enjoyed a lot were those that chronicled the travels of adventurers; if I couldn't go to those places that they had gone, at least I could experience them vicariously. Perhaps that is a reason why I enjoy anthropological documentaries, where anthropologists travel to some tribe far from the urban civilisation and do a study on their customs and way of life, and to study the impact of both globalisation and the rise of capitalism (and religious proselytising).
And yes, even as I am writing this and working, I am already thinking on the next adventure I should go on. Number of jungles bashed: 3. Number of strange tunnels spelunked: 1. Amount of fun and experience in the process: Priceless.
Till the next adventure.
Circumstances back in the day dictated that I had to refrain from strenuous physical activity to protect myself against flare-ups of my dermatitis. It was notsomuch that I was that sensitive to the problems, but that due to the whole regimented nature in which all the physical activities were conducted (school classes, military training), I was unable to take steps towards alleviating the conditions that would cause a flare-up all in the name of conformity. But now, free from all these arbitrarily designed limitations, I am free to pursue this side of human life that I have been robbed off in childhood.
It might come as a surprise to some that I am actually practising Aikido on a very regular basis. There is something about taking breakfalls, throwing and pinning people that make it a very good stress reliever. Having to focus one's weight into a single point has a way of literally maintaining the balance of the body, and all the conditioning exercises that precede each training session has seen their effects on my body. Not only do I have more stamina now than before, I have found that it becomes much easier to concentrate my strength to whatever task I need, with much less incidence of injury due to improper positioning or wrongful application of force. Aikido or any other martial art has a strange way of increasing one's spatial awareness, and that alone has made it much easier to enjoy the outdoor life.
Apart from being the occasional cyclist, most of my outdoor life activities revolve around the activity of Geocaching. Geocaching is hardly a new phenomenon since it has been around for more than a decade by now, but it is only recently that I have the wherewithal to actually pursue it with more aggression and enthusiasm than before. Partly due to the effects of some of the more enthusiastic geocachers that I have converted, and partly because I could attach some faces to the names that I see in the online geocache logs, my activities with regards to this has increased by quite a fair bit. To say that geocaching is a waste of time is not quite correct, since it is with geocaching that one would have the opportunity to go around a location, enjoying the natural sights and sounds and company, with the ultimate reward of finding that elusive geocache. Indeed, I would not have bashed through jungles, spelunked, traipsed over low tide beaches and the like if I weren't geocaching. Some people question the rewards of geocaching, often asking questions to the tune of ``so what happens when you find a geocache?''. To ask such a question seems to defeat the whole purpose of geocaching to begin with---the reward is not about the geocache you find, but the journey it took you to get there. In fact, one of the tenets of a geocache hide is that if there was nothing else interesting about the place where the geocache was hidden, perhaps it was not a good idea to hide it there in the first place.
But the outdoor life didn't come completely from geocaching of course. Ever since I was confined to the indoors I have always had that romantic view of adventures all over the world, travelling and exploring places that are less trodden, seeking for interesting formations, architectural ruins and the like. The books that I enjoyed a lot were those that chronicled the travels of adventurers; if I couldn't go to those places that they had gone, at least I could experience them vicariously. Perhaps that is a reason why I enjoy anthropological documentaries, where anthropologists travel to some tribe far from the urban civilisation and do a study on their customs and way of life, and to study the impact of both globalisation and the rise of capitalism (and religious proselytising).
And yes, even as I am writing this and working, I am already thinking on the next adventure I should go on. Number of jungles bashed: 3. Number of strange tunnels spelunked: 1. Amount of fun and experience in the process: Priceless.
Till the next adventure.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Governmental Ruminations
As I was sitting in the food court having a spicy meal of mutton curry, my mind drifted to and fro and in and out of consciousness. And then, something struck me as being odd.
The current system of democratic elections as practised by most of the civilised world seem to bias itself towards a local optimum as opposed to a global optimum system, what with the need to first elect members of parliament (MPs) to represent the constituency before selecting the cabinet ministers from the MPs in the dominant elected party.
Okay, so maybe they don't elect cabinet ministers from the MPs because that is only applicable to countries with a parliament (a republic) as opposed to one with a senate (a democracy). But the general idea is the same---everyone votes for their local representative, and the overall ``winner'' is determined by the aggregate votes throughout.
By virtue of the workings of the system, there seems to be an innate assumption that through selecting the local representative, it is possible to obtain a corp of people who, as a whole, can govern and manage the country well. This particular assumption is not wholly substantiated by theory---it is not known that government systems based on elections follow an optimum substructure property that guarantees us a global optimum peformance. Using a less jargon-filled approach, what I mean is that we have no proof that the local representatives whom we have voted into office to represent our localised interests are indeed effective custodians for the country's interest.
But of course, trying to institute a dual system will definitely cause a lot of complaints, since there will then be a perception that those who are voted in to deal with ``the big stuff'' are somehow ranked higher than the local representative representing the common folk. There are current governmental systems that have this partitioning concept sans the ``vote into power'' bit---observe how in some governmental systems, there is an upper house and a lower house, where the upper house are either made up of hereditary posts and the lower house is made up of members who were voted into power. It would appear then that the innate local versus global optimum bias is side stepped by a clear partitioning of the two interest groups---the upper house, being of ``noble descent'', seem more clearly suited to handle ``the big stuff'', while the lower house, being made of people voted into power, represent the localised interests. But of course, this just introduces a new type of bias that is a little hard to quantify; are those of the ``high born'' really more interested in the country's welfare?
But anyway, ruminations aside, political systems, in spite of the many efforts to rigourise them, are still products of an organic system that is not easily explained with the cold logic of empirical science. Even as we speak, even as I utter things here, the perceptions of how governance is enacted is still a hotly debated topic in both the academic and practical fields. I suppose only time will tell if what we are doing are indeed correct enough to stave off any major polirical catastrophes.
The current system of democratic elections as practised by most of the civilised world seem to bias itself towards a local optimum as opposed to a global optimum system, what with the need to first elect members of parliament (MPs) to represent the constituency before selecting the cabinet ministers from the MPs in the dominant elected party.
Okay, so maybe they don't elect cabinet ministers from the MPs because that is only applicable to countries with a parliament (a republic) as opposed to one with a senate (a democracy). But the general idea is the same---everyone votes for their local representative, and the overall ``winner'' is determined by the aggregate votes throughout.
By virtue of the workings of the system, there seems to be an innate assumption that through selecting the local representative, it is possible to obtain a corp of people who, as a whole, can govern and manage the country well. This particular assumption is not wholly substantiated by theory---it is not known that government systems based on elections follow an optimum substructure property that guarantees us a global optimum peformance. Using a less jargon-filled approach, what I mean is that we have no proof that the local representatives whom we have voted into office to represent our localised interests are indeed effective custodians for the country's interest.
But of course, trying to institute a dual system will definitely cause a lot of complaints, since there will then be a perception that those who are voted in to deal with ``the big stuff'' are somehow ranked higher than the local representative representing the common folk. There are current governmental systems that have this partitioning concept sans the ``vote into power'' bit---observe how in some governmental systems, there is an upper house and a lower house, where the upper house are either made up of hereditary posts and the lower house is made up of members who were voted into power. It would appear then that the innate local versus global optimum bias is side stepped by a clear partitioning of the two interest groups---the upper house, being of ``noble descent'', seem more clearly suited to handle ``the big stuff'', while the lower house, being made of people voted into power, represent the localised interests. But of course, this just introduces a new type of bias that is a little hard to quantify; are those of the ``high born'' really more interested in the country's welfare?
But anyway, ruminations aside, political systems, in spite of the many efforts to rigourise them, are still products of an organic system that is not easily explained with the cold logic of empirical science. Even as we speak, even as I utter things here, the perceptions of how governance is enacted is still a hotly debated topic in both the academic and practical fields. I suppose only time will tell if what we are doing are indeed correct enough to stave off any major polirical catastrophes.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
2 More Cents
*cracks knuckles*
So, not too long ago, Singapore just underwent yet another General Election. This time round, there were a few surprises, and quite a few upsets, and the overall activity level relating to this has been on a high. When it comes to politics of course, everyone has something to say, and I am of no exception.
However, I am just going to say a few general observations here about the whole event as opposed to picking on any particular person or party to lambast.
All in all, I think that this General Election has done its job of rekindling the citizens' interest in the policy making process for this country. That alone is a very important outcome---the citizens no longer take in the public policies passively, and the government enlightened to the direction and census that the citizens' sociology/psychology are heading. While many see this as a major clash between the ruling party and the opposition, it is more like the stage where the blossoming of ideas are allowed to proceed relatively unhindered, ideas that are thought of by the people, for the people.
Each time a major shift in political power occurs anywhere in the world, it is often marked by an increased access of communication technologies. First it was the postal system, then the radio and telegram, followed by television, and now, the Internet. The purpose of communication technology is to have an outreach from the political participants to the voters; it serves as a means of showcasing the party's ideologies and political agenda in a mass consumable manner.
But what just happened in Singapore was hardly a major shift in political power; it is more akin of a nascent mixed pot of political ideologies and cooperative antagonism. Of course the ruling party came back to power---this is just an outcome that is really improbable to not occur. But we also see the rise of how the opposition political parties generate more appeal to their causes through a closer interaction with the tech-savvy man-on-the-street. Singapore is not like the US with a whole slew of higly complicated, larger scaled constituencies where the needs of one constituency differs drastically from another---we are so physically small that whatever policies that may come out will affect everyone sooner or later, whether they like it or not. In that sense then, any form of outreach has a tendency to affect a much larger proportion of people than it is to be expected.
I have seen normally apathetic people literally take to the streets, shouting slogans, holding up posters, with some even pledging to join an opposition party should the ruling party return to power. All these fervour over this country's politics is something that we will all learn to appreciate in time to come. As the older voters fall off the register through their eventual demise, we will find that we, the progeny, will inherit the system left behind, and if we cannot even convince ourselves to care about what is going on, we will be in dire straits indeed.
There is, however, a cause of concern regarding the recent General Election that may abate itself as the term passes. While I was expecting a logos-centric argument for all the political parties involved during the campaigning, what I found at the end of the day was that the pathos-styled arguments were the more prevalent. Even in this time and age, where we boast literacy rates high in the nineties, we find that the only way the political parties seem to want to connect to us is through the pathos perspective. I find this very odd and disconcerting, since it gives the entire outcome of the General Election very dark undertones---all those years of education and understanding of the rational aspects of an argument are all useless as we end up being swayed by words meant to pull at our emotions. I'm not saying that pathos arguments are bad; I am saying that it is ironic that that form of argumentation is still the dominant form.
Perhaps we have not really progressed much in mentality since forty/fifty years ago.
So, not too long ago, Singapore just underwent yet another General Election. This time round, there were a few surprises, and quite a few upsets, and the overall activity level relating to this has been on a high. When it comes to politics of course, everyone has something to say, and I am of no exception.
However, I am just going to say a few general observations here about the whole event as opposed to picking on any particular person or party to lambast.
All in all, I think that this General Election has done its job of rekindling the citizens' interest in the policy making process for this country. That alone is a very important outcome---the citizens no longer take in the public policies passively, and the government enlightened to the direction and census that the citizens' sociology/psychology are heading. While many see this as a major clash between the ruling party and the opposition, it is more like the stage where the blossoming of ideas are allowed to proceed relatively unhindered, ideas that are thought of by the people, for the people.
Each time a major shift in political power occurs anywhere in the world, it is often marked by an increased access of communication technologies. First it was the postal system, then the radio and telegram, followed by television, and now, the Internet. The purpose of communication technology is to have an outreach from the political participants to the voters; it serves as a means of showcasing the party's ideologies and political agenda in a mass consumable manner.
But what just happened in Singapore was hardly a major shift in political power; it is more akin of a nascent mixed pot of political ideologies and cooperative antagonism. Of course the ruling party came back to power---this is just an outcome that is really improbable to not occur. But we also see the rise of how the opposition political parties generate more appeal to their causes through a closer interaction with the tech-savvy man-on-the-street. Singapore is not like the US with a whole slew of higly complicated, larger scaled constituencies where the needs of one constituency differs drastically from another---we are so physically small that whatever policies that may come out will affect everyone sooner or later, whether they like it or not. In that sense then, any form of outreach has a tendency to affect a much larger proportion of people than it is to be expected.
I have seen normally apathetic people literally take to the streets, shouting slogans, holding up posters, with some even pledging to join an opposition party should the ruling party return to power. All these fervour over this country's politics is something that we will all learn to appreciate in time to come. As the older voters fall off the register through their eventual demise, we will find that we, the progeny, will inherit the system left behind, and if we cannot even convince ourselves to care about what is going on, we will be in dire straits indeed.
There is, however, a cause of concern regarding the recent General Election that may abate itself as the term passes. While I was expecting a logos-centric argument for all the political parties involved during the campaigning, what I found at the end of the day was that the pathos-styled arguments were the more prevalent. Even in this time and age, where we boast literacy rates high in the nineties, we find that the only way the political parties seem to want to connect to us is through the pathos perspective. I find this very odd and disconcerting, since it gives the entire outcome of the General Election very dark undertones---all those years of education and understanding of the rational aspects of an argument are all useless as we end up being swayed by words meant to pull at our emotions. I'm not saying that pathos arguments are bad; I am saying that it is ironic that that form of argumentation is still the dominant form.
Perhaps we have not really progressed much in mentality since forty/fifty years ago.
Monday, May 09, 2011
Jungle Bashing Fun
It's strange that when I had an official opportunity to do lots of jungle bashing, I wasn't able, and now that I'm off the whole NSF system, I'm actually actively picking jungles to bash.
No, that wasn't a mistake---I have been picking jungles to bash through just for the sheer fun of seeking some geocache that is located right in the middle of the said jungle.
Jungle bashing from a civilian perspective has a different allure from that of military jungle bashing, for sure. For one, when you are bashing through the jungle in the capacity of a military personnel, you are there for a serious purpose, with heightened tension from any potential enemy attack. But when you are jungle bashing as a civilian, you get to actually enjoy the terrain challenges that the jungle throws at you. Of course, I use the word ``enjoy'' in a loose sense---it takes a certain type of person to find it pleasurable enough to go through a jungle to actually do it.
To me, the allure of jungle bashing comes from the near primal nature of it all. There is nothing more visceral than facing nature itself---all the theories and what-not mean nothing in the face of the realities of the undergrowth, the thorns, the humidity, the chirping of the cicadas, the sloshing of the mud, the crunching of leaves and the like. Maybe I am seeking some sense of balance in life, having work and its multitude of complications on one side of the balance, and health with wellness on the other side of the balance. A tricky position indeed.
I wouldn't be very surprised if I get more and more adventurous the older I get. One needs inspiration for stories after all.
No, that wasn't a mistake---I have been picking jungles to bash through just for the sheer fun of seeking some geocache that is located right in the middle of the said jungle.
Jungle bashing from a civilian perspective has a different allure from that of military jungle bashing, for sure. For one, when you are bashing through the jungle in the capacity of a military personnel, you are there for a serious purpose, with heightened tension from any potential enemy attack. But when you are jungle bashing as a civilian, you get to actually enjoy the terrain challenges that the jungle throws at you. Of course, I use the word ``enjoy'' in a loose sense---it takes a certain type of person to find it pleasurable enough to go through a jungle to actually do it.
To me, the allure of jungle bashing comes from the near primal nature of it all. There is nothing more visceral than facing nature itself---all the theories and what-not mean nothing in the face of the realities of the undergrowth, the thorns, the humidity, the chirping of the cicadas, the sloshing of the mud, the crunching of leaves and the like. Maybe I am seeking some sense of balance in life, having work and its multitude of complications on one side of the balance, and health with wellness on the other side of the balance. A tricky position indeed.
I wouldn't be very surprised if I get more and more adventurous the older I get. One needs inspiration for stories after all.
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Some Myth Debunking...
Heh. I know that my blog isn't a very famous one, but it's still a good conduit for me to vent out my thoughts on issues that I see these days.
One of the questions that some teenagers might be thinking about is this: which scholarship should I go on for my further studies? In a somewhat tangential method to address this questions, let me try to debunk some myths that people might have about their future and the steps that they are taking now.
Myth #1: You must study very hard and get into a good school to go far.
This myth is tricky. The underlying assumption is that somehow an association with a good school's name/reputation will give you that leverage to push you further in life, particularly in the case of careers. Well, reality isn't that clear cut---the reputation of the school can only get you that far; everything else is up to your own abilities and attitude. To put it in a blunt way, the reputation of the school can get you that initial interview, but if you have absolutely nothing else to show for, you still won't get that job or dream career.
Myth #2: You will learn all that you need for your career in university/college.
This cannot be further from the truth. Strangely enough, you will learn some new things from university/college, but what you end up doing for your job/career is more related to what your interests are as opposed to what you were taught in school. Just look at how many engineering-trained students who branch out into other domains like business, finance and even the Arts---were they taught all these in school? While university/college provides you with the opportunity to mingle with similarly minded people (thus making the environment more conducive for learning), to think that the college education is all that is needed is pure foolishness.
Myth #3: A scholarship is a must because of the prestige.
Ho ho ho... if one takes up the scholarship only because of the associated prestige, one is going to be in big big trouble! A scholarship is a contract---when you take it up, you are making a promise to whoever is sponsoring the scholarship that you will meet their requirements, and if need be, repay them by working for them at the conclusion of your studies. So, if you are some nubile eighteen-year-old considering if you should take up some scholarship somewhere, you should really really really think carefully if you are wholly comfortable with the conditions stipulated in the scholarship contract. If your only reason is ``for the prestige'', then don't bother---you will not be happy at the end of the day.
Myth #4: My career will be fixed from the day I graduate from college.
For this myth... it depends on a lot of factors. If you already know what you want, this is easily disproven, but one must always be prepared for changes. The only constant thing about the world is that it is always changing, and to think that you will be in the same career for more than a decade can be a little unrealistic. So continual improvement and self-discovery of what one can and cannot do are necessary to survive in this world. Formal education can only get one that far---everything beyond that is up to one's attitude and aptitude.
Okay, I'm getting a little annoyed at this exposition, so I will stop here. Till next time.
One of the questions that some teenagers might be thinking about is this: which scholarship should I go on for my further studies? In a somewhat tangential method to address this questions, let me try to debunk some myths that people might have about their future and the steps that they are taking now.
Myth #1: You must study very hard and get into a good school to go far.
This myth is tricky. The underlying assumption is that somehow an association with a good school's name/reputation will give you that leverage to push you further in life, particularly in the case of careers. Well, reality isn't that clear cut---the reputation of the school can only get you that far; everything else is up to your own abilities and attitude. To put it in a blunt way, the reputation of the school can get you that initial interview, but if you have absolutely nothing else to show for, you still won't get that job or dream career.
Myth #2: You will learn all that you need for your career in university/college.
This cannot be further from the truth. Strangely enough, you will learn some new things from university/college, but what you end up doing for your job/career is more related to what your interests are as opposed to what you were taught in school. Just look at how many engineering-trained students who branch out into other domains like business, finance and even the Arts---were they taught all these in school? While university/college provides you with the opportunity to mingle with similarly minded people (thus making the environment more conducive for learning), to think that the college education is all that is needed is pure foolishness.
Myth #3: A scholarship is a must because of the prestige.
Ho ho ho... if one takes up the scholarship only because of the associated prestige, one is going to be in big big trouble! A scholarship is a contract---when you take it up, you are making a promise to whoever is sponsoring the scholarship that you will meet their requirements, and if need be, repay them by working for them at the conclusion of your studies. So, if you are some nubile eighteen-year-old considering if you should take up some scholarship somewhere, you should really really really think carefully if you are wholly comfortable with the conditions stipulated in the scholarship contract. If your only reason is ``for the prestige'', then don't bother---you will not be happy at the end of the day.
Myth #4: My career will be fixed from the day I graduate from college.
For this myth... it depends on a lot of factors. If you already know what you want, this is easily disproven, but one must always be prepared for changes. The only constant thing about the world is that it is always changing, and to think that you will be in the same career for more than a decade can be a little unrealistic. So continual improvement and self-discovery of what one can and cannot do are necessary to survive in this world. Formal education can only get one that far---everything beyond that is up to one's attitude and aptitude.
Okay, I'm getting a little annoyed at this exposition, so I will stop here. Till next time.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Adventures in 20 Days
Twenty days have passed since the last entry here, and while I don't know who is really following this blog, I think I might owe my hidden audience an update or two ever so often.
Much can occur in twenty days, and it is of no difference now. Over the last twenty days, I have done the following (in no particular order):
I think I believe more in myself now than ever. I think I no longer harbour a strong need to have someone who is there for me; I think that I am starting to understand what it means to be a strong individual. It's funny to think that I need such a long time to finally realise what many folks have understood for a long time. In any case, it is a nice reprieve from all the unhappiness that I have been having over the last few years over this; while it is a little contrary to my overall being (a normal thing, considering that I'm a man of walking contradictions), it is still a sound proposition to myself. There is really no need to be reliant on a special other when one is strong enough. And thanks to the amazing powers of gender roles in society, it becomes much easier to convince myself that I am on the right course.
Of course, the true acid test of whether my mettle is stronger is when the time comes and I fly off for my next round of studies. Isolation has a strange way of amplifying all sorts of latent negative emotions that are absent when one has a support network of friends.
Much can occur in twenty days, and it is of no difference now. Over the last twenty days, I have done the following (in no particular order):
- Met up with the ``new generation'' geocachers at an event
- Bought a new 箫 and 笛子
- Found a long lost geocache that was stumping the usual finders
- Got a first to find on a puzzle cache for my geocache centurial find
- Got assaulted by red ants on bare skin
- Walked through a mini tunnel near a drain that runs through a building
- Walked along a mossy rock-infested shoreline towards cliffs at low tide
- Learnt more about dog breeds than I had cared to find out
- Bashed through two jungles in Singapore and breaking lock combinations of the logs of the geocache
- Got stung by something unknown
- Performed light ``field surgery'' to remove a thorn splinter in my thumb
- Made some break through in work
- Got spanners thrown at me for my studies
I think I believe more in myself now than ever. I think I no longer harbour a strong need to have someone who is there for me; I think that I am starting to understand what it means to be a strong individual. It's funny to think that I need such a long time to finally realise what many folks have understood for a long time. In any case, it is a nice reprieve from all the unhappiness that I have been having over the last few years over this; while it is a little contrary to my overall being (a normal thing, considering that I'm a man of walking contradictions), it is still a sound proposition to myself. There is really no need to be reliant on a special other when one is strong enough. And thanks to the amazing powers of gender roles in society, it becomes much easier to convince myself that I am on the right course.
Of course, the true acid test of whether my mettle is stronger is when the time comes and I fly off for my next round of studies. Isolation has a strange way of amplifying all sorts of latent negative emotions that are absent when one has a support network of friends.
Saturday, April 02, 2011
Taste of Failure...
What is the taste of failure? Is it completely bitter, or does it taste of forlornness as well? Is there any other thing that ``tastes'' worse than failure? Does anyone know?
Failure is something that most people strive to avoid, just because it is the representation of a lack of an achievement, and that it is also the manifestation of the supposed inability. Such a notion is so ingrained in the psyche that for the most part, everyone views failure in disdain.
But the truth is often more stranger than perception. While failure gives the most disgusting feeling of dread to almost everyone as a general rule of thumb and is almost universally scorned. the fact remains that failure is the only way that society as a whole progresses. Allow me to further illustrate this point.
The entire advancement of science as a knowledge system is based wholly on that of failure---each time a theory fails on a particular case, a new theory has to be concocted that will ``fix'' the broken theory. But if a theory has always been successful thus far, there is no guarantee that it is actually correct, since scientific theories are based largely on the principle of empiricism than induction as in mathematics; just because the theory works for the last large number of trials does not necessary mean that it will be simultaneously successful for the next trial, though we will, without loss of generality, assume from past verifications that it is still ``correct'' as far as we can tell for the foreseeable future.
So from the individual's perspective, failure is among the most distasteful of positions to be in, yet paradoxically, for the global good, we find that it is of an utmost necessity. This is not the first time we are seeing this phenomenon---I have talked about this some time ago regarding the optimisation problem, where the global optimum does not necessarily mean that every single individual comprising the group under study will benefit.
But of course, no one really wants to taste failure...
Failure is something that most people strive to avoid, just because it is the representation of a lack of an achievement, and that it is also the manifestation of the supposed inability. Such a notion is so ingrained in the psyche that for the most part, everyone views failure in disdain.
But the truth is often more stranger than perception. While failure gives the most disgusting feeling of dread to almost everyone as a general rule of thumb and is almost universally scorned. the fact remains that failure is the only way that society as a whole progresses. Allow me to further illustrate this point.
The entire advancement of science as a knowledge system is based wholly on that of failure---each time a theory fails on a particular case, a new theory has to be concocted that will ``fix'' the broken theory. But if a theory has always been successful thus far, there is no guarantee that it is actually correct, since scientific theories are based largely on the principle of empiricism than induction as in mathematics; just because the theory works for the last large number of trials does not necessary mean that it will be simultaneously successful for the next trial, though we will, without loss of generality, assume from past verifications that it is still ``correct'' as far as we can tell for the foreseeable future.
So from the individual's perspective, failure is among the most distasteful of positions to be in, yet paradoxically, for the global good, we find that it is of an utmost necessity. This is not the first time we are seeing this phenomenon---I have talked about this some time ago regarding the optimisation problem, where the global optimum does not necessarily mean that every single individual comprising the group under study will benefit.
But of course, no one really wants to taste failure...
Blizzard Downloader Workaround
If you have any problems with downloading any of the digital download versions of Blizzard Entertainment's games, try to use Internet Explorer for a change instead of Firefox.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Middle Ear Infection Sucks
I swear that I'm not that moody a person, and that each time I choose to update this by writing an article or two, it's only because I have something nasty to get out of my mind so that it can recover. Oh, and I swear that being half-deaf is the most annoying thing that one can feel.
And why is it that I'm now half-deaf? All thanks to the middle ear infection that I have had to deal with over the last week or so. It is pretty annoying, to say the least, having to deal with an infection that is invisible yet always makes its presence known through the general bunged-upness of the ear. And in my ``good'' ear too---there is no justice in the world, it seems. Anyway, yes, I've been dealing with the infection over the last week, drifting in and out of consciousness from the higher fevers that I had to deal with, and dealing with the ridiculous amount of foul-smelling and foul-tasting phlegm and mucus, the latter of which I learnt only a few days ago when I started to feel a bit better and found that my taste buds were no longer numbed up.
Damn thing was a sickly green goo that tasted most foul. Could have sworn it was the pus from the middle ear that was forcefully drained by me via the Eustachian tube---it was in a ridiculous amount of quantity too. Very vile experience that I hope never to repeat.
Well today is almost a week after I first started on the course of antibiotics, and I feel mostly fine. The fever had broke a couple of days back, the cough is much reduced, and the ridiculously foul-smelling/tasting discharge is also reduced. But there is still this damn tinnitus in my ear that is driving me crazy and that whole bunged up feeling still hasn't gone away completely.
A worthy question to ask is why do I even have this lousy infection in the first place? There is only one answer to this: a weakened constitution due to stress.
Stress. Stress is the cause of my downfall.
Sometimes I hate myself, hate myself for being so... strongly work-minded. Always thinking about how to do more in a better/efficient/cost-saving manner. Always pushing myself more and more, convincing myself that there is always work to be done, and that I should be a conscientious worker who is mindful of his overall productivity. And that's why I even returned to work on some projects even when I was on leave the last time, simply because they were not worked on often enough due to the sorry fact that I've been committed almost 140% of my work week's time.
And thanks to that, I fell ill. Twice. It's just that this time, it's a fairly serious one that will probably have long-term ramifications that I need to take care of.
Thankfully, this week I am on leave. Final-fucking-ly, I might add, though it probably came about two weeks too late---had I taken a break two weeks earlier, I'd probably not be so stressed to the point that an infection would break out and take me out for a week. But we all have perfect hindsight, and this is no exception.
One thing's for certain though, I'm not going to give a rat's ass about work for this whole week I'm on leave. I think I deserve at least this privilege considering everything that is said and done. Time to make sure that the ``leave'' I take is put to good use in recharging my batteries so that I don't go down like a house of cards in a gale. Everyone will thank me for that, I'm sure.
And why is it that I'm now half-deaf? All thanks to the middle ear infection that I have had to deal with over the last week or so. It is pretty annoying, to say the least, having to deal with an infection that is invisible yet always makes its presence known through the general bunged-upness of the ear. And in my ``good'' ear too---there is no justice in the world, it seems. Anyway, yes, I've been dealing with the infection over the last week, drifting in and out of consciousness from the higher fevers that I had to deal with, and dealing with the ridiculous amount of foul-smelling and foul-tasting phlegm and mucus, the latter of which I learnt only a few days ago when I started to feel a bit better and found that my taste buds were no longer numbed up.
Damn thing was a sickly green goo that tasted most foul. Could have sworn it was the pus from the middle ear that was forcefully drained by me via the Eustachian tube---it was in a ridiculous amount of quantity too. Very vile experience that I hope never to repeat.
Well today is almost a week after I first started on the course of antibiotics, and I feel mostly fine. The fever had broke a couple of days back, the cough is much reduced, and the ridiculously foul-smelling/tasting discharge is also reduced. But there is still this damn tinnitus in my ear that is driving me crazy and that whole bunged up feeling still hasn't gone away completely.
A worthy question to ask is why do I even have this lousy infection in the first place? There is only one answer to this: a weakened constitution due to stress.
Stress. Stress is the cause of my downfall.
Sometimes I hate myself, hate myself for being so... strongly work-minded. Always thinking about how to do more in a better/efficient/cost-saving manner. Always pushing myself more and more, convincing myself that there is always work to be done, and that I should be a conscientious worker who is mindful of his overall productivity. And that's why I even returned to work on some projects even when I was on leave the last time, simply because they were not worked on often enough due to the sorry fact that I've been committed almost 140% of my work week's time.
And thanks to that, I fell ill. Twice. It's just that this time, it's a fairly serious one that will probably have long-term ramifications that I need to take care of.
Thankfully, this week I am on leave. Final-fucking-ly, I might add, though it probably came about two weeks too late---had I taken a break two weeks earlier, I'd probably not be so stressed to the point that an infection would break out and take me out for a week. But we all have perfect hindsight, and this is no exception.
One thing's for certain though, I'm not going to give a rat's ass about work for this whole week I'm on leave. I think I deserve at least this privilege considering everything that is said and done. Time to make sure that the ``leave'' I take is put to good use in recharging my batteries so that I don't go down like a house of cards in a gale. Everyone will thank me for that, I'm sure.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Thinking While Procrastinating
So, instead of working on my slides for a presentation that is due some time in the morning of tomorrow, I find myself thinking about really random things as I try to focus my thoughts on the order of presentation that I am striving to attain. And among all the random things that come to mind from being part sleep-deprived and part sick is this simple question: why am I always attracted to the ``weird'' girls, and not those that are, you know, more ``normal'' within the Singapore context?
It has been a suspicion of mine that I am somewhat gender blind, in the sense that I don't really seem to have an obsessive attraction to ``girly-girls'', or females who demonstrate typical ``female'' behaviour. While I know that I am attracted to the female aesthetic (i.e. the ``looks like female'' criterion), it is not always the case that I am attracted to a personality that seems to evoke the kinds of typical macho emotions. Put in a more simple way, I seem to have an attraction to females who look female, but have a personality that is on the strong side, to the point sometimes that if one were to transplant that personality into a male body, the resulting mix can be easily identified as a true blue male.
This observation is of course based on the fragmented reflections that I have been having with regards to this particular aspect of my life. The sad truth about this type of attraction is this, such females are usually fiercely independent and are thus less likely to be involved in a relationship. So unless I can find a female who is ``fiercely independent yet doesn't mind the company'' or if I can alter the kinds of taste I have, getting settled down with that special someone is just not going to happen.
It has been a suspicion of mine that I am somewhat gender blind, in the sense that I don't really seem to have an obsessive attraction to ``girly-girls'', or females who demonstrate typical ``female'' behaviour. While I know that I am attracted to the female aesthetic (i.e. the ``looks like female'' criterion), it is not always the case that I am attracted to a personality that seems to evoke the kinds of typical macho emotions. Put in a more simple way, I seem to have an attraction to females who look female, but have a personality that is on the strong side, to the point sometimes that if one were to transplant that personality into a male body, the resulting mix can be easily identified as a true blue male.
This observation is of course based on the fragmented reflections that I have been having with regards to this particular aspect of my life. The sad truth about this type of attraction is this, such females are usually fiercely independent and are thus less likely to be involved in a relationship. So unless I can find a female who is ``fiercely independent yet doesn't mind the company'' or if I can alter the kinds of taste I have, getting settled down with that special someone is just not going to happen.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Killing Me Softly with This Work
Okay, so this is a mostly unplanned entry (not that the other entries are any more planned), but I suppose I just feel like talking random things today.
I think as a whole I'm just getting very very tired about a lot of things. Everything seems to be coming in large droves, and at times, it does feel a little overwhelming, though it hasn't gotten to the point that I feel like crying for help yet. Perhaps I'm stronger than I thought I was, or maybe I'm just too much of a nut case to realise just how much pressure I really am under.
In times of great pressure, I am slowly finding that keeping to myself makes a whole lot of difference to the whole mechanics, partly because there is little time wastage in having to deal with people. With those precious minutes saved in dealing with people, I can actually start to apply the time to myself from a much better position, since I alone can dictate how the time should be spent on what activity, and not have to play ``nice'' and follow the crowd, which, more often than not, display a general lack of discipline with regards to how time is used.
Of course, being alone in most regards does strange things to the mind. You become more paranoid about things that happen around you, and you start to think of things that shouldn't have appeared in your mind at all---some might call this a delusion, and I am not about to debate on that. Delusional or not, I think I'm starting to feel the effects of having worked non-stop for six months.
Six months with hardly a break.
Six months.
To be precise, it is probably longer, since the last time I went on a week's leave, it was spent working on yet another work-related project. No wonder I'm fast going insane and weirder than usual.
*sigh*
Anyway, this time I've decided to get another week off for myself just to unwind and relax. It's just so hard to pick a week among the myriad of weeks to take time off for myself---there's always this meeting here, some deadline there, and everyone wants a bit of you everywhere you look. But I suppose enough is enough, and I probably need the break badly---I can't keep going on like this, or there won't be a me left very soon.
Maybe I will write more next time. For now, I suppose this little expulsion should suffice.
I think as a whole I'm just getting very very tired about a lot of things. Everything seems to be coming in large droves, and at times, it does feel a little overwhelming, though it hasn't gotten to the point that I feel like crying for help yet. Perhaps I'm stronger than I thought I was, or maybe I'm just too much of a nut case to realise just how much pressure I really am under.
In times of great pressure, I am slowly finding that keeping to myself makes a whole lot of difference to the whole mechanics, partly because there is little time wastage in having to deal with people. With those precious minutes saved in dealing with people, I can actually start to apply the time to myself from a much better position, since I alone can dictate how the time should be spent on what activity, and not have to play ``nice'' and follow the crowd, which, more often than not, display a general lack of discipline with regards to how time is used.
Of course, being alone in most regards does strange things to the mind. You become more paranoid about things that happen around you, and you start to think of things that shouldn't have appeared in your mind at all---some might call this a delusion, and I am not about to debate on that. Delusional or not, I think I'm starting to feel the effects of having worked non-stop for six months.
Six months with hardly a break.
Six months.
To be precise, it is probably longer, since the last time I went on a week's leave, it was spent working on yet another work-related project. No wonder I'm fast going insane and weirder than usual.
*sigh*
Anyway, this time I've decided to get another week off for myself just to unwind and relax. It's just so hard to pick a week among the myriad of weeks to take time off for myself---there's always this meeting here, some deadline there, and everyone wants a bit of you everywhere you look. But I suppose enough is enough, and I probably need the break badly---I can't keep going on like this, or there won't be a me left very soon.
Maybe I will write more next time. For now, I suppose this little expulsion should suffice.
Neverwinter Nights 2 Texture Bug
To work around the bug where all you can see are shadows and the ``sky'' in Neverwinter Nights 2, use ` to get to the console, and then type the following:
debugmode 1This will switch off the sky box rendering and allow the normal textures to show. Don't worry, you don't really miss much by removing the sky box.
sky 0
debugmode 0
Late Night Musing
So today as I sat in front of Eileen, my new portable gaming rig, a thought came to mind---just what was it that drives people to do the crazy things that they do ever so often, and more importantly, why they sometimes end up turning away from the very thing that gave them the biggest pleasure in the first place to work on something that is, comparatively speaking, more mundane?
Of course, this thought came about through a few triggers. The biggest one was the story of Annabel Chong, which, if you haven't known by now, is about the infamous Singapore pornographic arts actress who did a massive gang bang film back in the day. She has since returned to a more mundane existence, stating for the record that ``Annabel Chong is dead, and in her place is the evil doppelganger''. But of course, sensational as this story is, there are more mundane stories that I have of the people around me that fall in roughly the same category of people who went through a massively crazy period before falling back into a mundane existence.
I suppose there are a few ways of looking at this phenomenon. One way that I found to be rather interesting is the perspective that everything that we do has a certain notion of a ``finite limit''---meaning there is only a finite amount of energies that we can devote to a certain task, and once this energy is gone, it will never return. In some senses, this is a rather accurate if unscientific way of thinking about things. It actually is an idea that is loosely paraphrased from an Aikido practitioner's saying of ``we only have a limited number of breakfalls that we can do in our life-time, so we should make good use of it''. But to the main point: we can sustain only a finite amount of interest in something, before the brain gets bored with the enterprise and moves on to something else. This means that for any activity that we may do that is not theoretically essential (like breathing, sleeping or eating for instance), we can only sustain a finite amount of interest and corresponding energy into the matter before we start to lose complete interest in it in the manner of a ``burn-out''.
Empirically speaking, it does seem like a sound perception---do too many of the things you like and it will end up being something that you hate. The question then is not whether this principle is correct in practice (we are taking it so a priori), but whether we can work around the principle to achieve an effect that appears to contradict the given notion.
Let me provide an example to illustrate this point. Suppose I am learning a new skill, say driving. Without loss of generality, we will assume that, based on the above-mentioned principle, I will have n hours of interest in driving for the entirety of my lifetime. These n hours are taken to be absolute---they assume that if I did nothing but drive, I would spend only n hours of them on driving in this life-time. There are two rather extreme ways of seeing this: I can choose to drive only a few hours in a week and end up stretching the perception of time to about n divided by the number of hours per week to claim an interest counted in weeks, or I can just keep driving during the 16+ hours that I am awake and claim differently. Both methods consume all the n hours eventually, but which is the better allocation of time?
To most people, it would actually make more sense to ``spread out'' the time, partly due to the fact that it is likely to be impossible to be working on the skill/activity non-stop, but partly because the activity needs to be stopped intermittently just to maintain some level of interest for the practitioner. Back to the Annabel story quoted above---why did she quit her glamorous job of being a pornographic actress to go into web development? Maybe she got sick of all the sex---one tends to have more intercourse when one is a pornographic actress I suppose, or maybe she is just sick of all the attention (for some loose definition of ``amount of attention one wants in a life time''). Either way, it got her thinking and snapping out of the crazy zone and moving on to something more mundane.
When I saw that story, I got really concerned, because I can see myself ending up like her, and no, I don't mean ending up as a gang-bang porn star. What I mean is that I can see myself ending up in the crazy zone doing really apeshit crazy stuff, and then suddenly quitting it all to do something more mundane. Actually, among many of my friends both past and present, it would appear that they are in a similar danger themselves of getting stuck accidentally in the crazy zone. Now, the problem is not the getting stuck in the crazy zone part (you're too crazy to realise it, but woe to those around you), but that the eventual ``crash'' out of the crazy zone will mean that you will never go back to that activity again. I can see how Annabel might have some distaste with her ``crazy zone'' life---that explains why she decided to kill off that personality. And in the case of my own circumstances, I can see myself foregoing research completely should I end up being in the crazy zone for research. That is one thing that I hope never to do, simply because I cannot just live with the mundane---it bores my mind to death and I end up vegetating and becoming exactly like the kinds of ignorant people that I have sworn that I will never be.
And that's why I try to maintain a healthy list of activities to keep me occupied. Previously, I call these activities the different ``facets'' of myself, but now I think they are merely activities that I, the central Ego, choose to do on my own time. There is a sense of consolidation of my fragmented psyche (a product over the last half a decade, I might add), with the general understanding that I need to keep all the activities sufficiently interesting so that I can keep things moving on well into old age and eventually towards my death.
It is not true that if one does not dedicate 100% of one's waking hours to the task that one is not passionate enough---there is a difference between passion and sustainable passion. Basing on the principle stated above, raw passion is like falling very deeply in love with someone, kissing/hugging/holding hands and doing all kinds of lovey dovey stuff in every possible mushy way---sure it's fun and invigorating, but what happens when one runs out of ideas on how to impress? Is it still love/passion? Sustainable passion, it seems, is something that comes in controlled waves---the fire is there, but it is not a bright explosion in the sky but the soft burning embers of a kindling flame, slowly but surely consuming both fuel and oxygen. A sustainable reaction may take longer on the get go, but it will definitely outlast anything that starts quickly and without foundation.
And that of course, brings us back to the sore topic that seems to plague me ever since I started writing in a semi-public manner---relationships, or specifically, romantic relationships. So the last part in the saga saw me getting pretty hurt from quite a few angles, and then deciding that I wasn't really ready for a relationship now, even though I seemed to be more ``experienced'' having gone through a couple of iterations or so. In a way, that position still holds, but based on the observations that I'm having, I am actually swinging further outfield on the whole let's-not-even-get-involved camp. You see, there is really little reason to be involved in a relationship that leads to marriage. I don't mind the companionship and all the other perks from a relationship, but marriage as a concept is something that is starting to make less and less sense the more we proceed through the social advancement.
I believe that I have argued about the purpose of marriage in another entry, but I am too lazy to look for it. I shall restate the argument here again: marriage is about the strategic union of economic or political powers---there is really little else to the matter. And since everyone is more or less more independent now than before, we find that the dependence factor that is prevalent in marriage is getting eroded away. The proof of this direction of change can be seen in the rising divorce rates in all the countries that have divorce as a legal cop-out from a ``failed'' marriage---if marriage were really something desirable, why then are the divorce rates on the rise? Are the married people learning something that they didn't know when they were still single?
Anyway, it is already getting late here as I write this entry, and given that I'm running some horrid cold from being up too late over a few nights, I think it is best if I retired to bed for now. But before I go, I leave behind this question for pondering:
Must the bulk of a country's population growth come from procreation of the ``natural citizens'' or should a country be thankful of population growth from any source?
Of course, this thought came about through a few triggers. The biggest one was the story of Annabel Chong, which, if you haven't known by now, is about the infamous Singapore pornographic arts actress who did a massive gang bang film back in the day. She has since returned to a more mundane existence, stating for the record that ``Annabel Chong is dead, and in her place is the evil doppelganger''. But of course, sensational as this story is, there are more mundane stories that I have of the people around me that fall in roughly the same category of people who went through a massively crazy period before falling back into a mundane existence.
I suppose there are a few ways of looking at this phenomenon. One way that I found to be rather interesting is the perspective that everything that we do has a certain notion of a ``finite limit''---meaning there is only a finite amount of energies that we can devote to a certain task, and once this energy is gone, it will never return. In some senses, this is a rather accurate if unscientific way of thinking about things. It actually is an idea that is loosely paraphrased from an Aikido practitioner's saying of ``we only have a limited number of breakfalls that we can do in our life-time, so we should make good use of it''. But to the main point: we can sustain only a finite amount of interest in something, before the brain gets bored with the enterprise and moves on to something else. This means that for any activity that we may do that is not theoretically essential (like breathing, sleeping or eating for instance), we can only sustain a finite amount of interest and corresponding energy into the matter before we start to lose complete interest in it in the manner of a ``burn-out''.
Empirically speaking, it does seem like a sound perception---do too many of the things you like and it will end up being something that you hate. The question then is not whether this principle is correct in practice (we are taking it so a priori), but whether we can work around the principle to achieve an effect that appears to contradict the given notion.
Let me provide an example to illustrate this point. Suppose I am learning a new skill, say driving. Without loss of generality, we will assume that, based on the above-mentioned principle, I will have n hours of interest in driving for the entirety of my lifetime. These n hours are taken to be absolute---they assume that if I did nothing but drive, I would spend only n hours of them on driving in this life-time. There are two rather extreme ways of seeing this: I can choose to drive only a few hours in a week and end up stretching the perception of time to about n divided by the number of hours per week to claim an interest counted in weeks, or I can just keep driving during the 16+ hours that I am awake and claim differently. Both methods consume all the n hours eventually, but which is the better allocation of time?
To most people, it would actually make more sense to ``spread out'' the time, partly due to the fact that it is likely to be impossible to be working on the skill/activity non-stop, but partly because the activity needs to be stopped intermittently just to maintain some level of interest for the practitioner. Back to the Annabel story quoted above---why did she quit her glamorous job of being a pornographic actress to go into web development? Maybe she got sick of all the sex---one tends to have more intercourse when one is a pornographic actress I suppose, or maybe she is just sick of all the attention (for some loose definition of ``amount of attention one wants in a life time''). Either way, it got her thinking and snapping out of the crazy zone and moving on to something more mundane.
When I saw that story, I got really concerned, because I can see myself ending up like her, and no, I don't mean ending up as a gang-bang porn star. What I mean is that I can see myself ending up in the crazy zone doing really apeshit crazy stuff, and then suddenly quitting it all to do something more mundane. Actually, among many of my friends both past and present, it would appear that they are in a similar danger themselves of getting stuck accidentally in the crazy zone. Now, the problem is not the getting stuck in the crazy zone part (you're too crazy to realise it, but woe to those around you), but that the eventual ``crash'' out of the crazy zone will mean that you will never go back to that activity again. I can see how Annabel might have some distaste with her ``crazy zone'' life---that explains why she decided to kill off that personality. And in the case of my own circumstances, I can see myself foregoing research completely should I end up being in the crazy zone for research. That is one thing that I hope never to do, simply because I cannot just live with the mundane---it bores my mind to death and I end up vegetating and becoming exactly like the kinds of ignorant people that I have sworn that I will never be.
And that's why I try to maintain a healthy list of activities to keep me occupied. Previously, I call these activities the different ``facets'' of myself, but now I think they are merely activities that I, the central Ego, choose to do on my own time. There is a sense of consolidation of my fragmented psyche (a product over the last half a decade, I might add), with the general understanding that I need to keep all the activities sufficiently interesting so that I can keep things moving on well into old age and eventually towards my death.
It is not true that if one does not dedicate 100% of one's waking hours to the task that one is not passionate enough---there is a difference between passion and sustainable passion. Basing on the principle stated above, raw passion is like falling very deeply in love with someone, kissing/hugging/holding hands and doing all kinds of lovey dovey stuff in every possible mushy way---sure it's fun and invigorating, but what happens when one runs out of ideas on how to impress? Is it still love/passion? Sustainable passion, it seems, is something that comes in controlled waves---the fire is there, but it is not a bright explosion in the sky but the soft burning embers of a kindling flame, slowly but surely consuming both fuel and oxygen. A sustainable reaction may take longer on the get go, but it will definitely outlast anything that starts quickly and without foundation.
And that of course, brings us back to the sore topic that seems to plague me ever since I started writing in a semi-public manner---relationships, or specifically, romantic relationships. So the last part in the saga saw me getting pretty hurt from quite a few angles, and then deciding that I wasn't really ready for a relationship now, even though I seemed to be more ``experienced'' having gone through a couple of iterations or so. In a way, that position still holds, but based on the observations that I'm having, I am actually swinging further outfield on the whole let's-not-even-get-involved camp. You see, there is really little reason to be involved in a relationship that leads to marriage. I don't mind the companionship and all the other perks from a relationship, but marriage as a concept is something that is starting to make less and less sense the more we proceed through the social advancement.
I believe that I have argued about the purpose of marriage in another entry, but I am too lazy to look for it. I shall restate the argument here again: marriage is about the strategic union of economic or political powers---there is really little else to the matter. And since everyone is more or less more independent now than before, we find that the dependence factor that is prevalent in marriage is getting eroded away. The proof of this direction of change can be seen in the rising divorce rates in all the countries that have divorce as a legal cop-out from a ``failed'' marriage---if marriage were really something desirable, why then are the divorce rates on the rise? Are the married people learning something that they didn't know when they were still single?
Anyway, it is already getting late here as I write this entry, and given that I'm running some horrid cold from being up too late over a few nights, I think it is best if I retired to bed for now. But before I go, I leave behind this question for pondering:
Must the bulk of a country's population growth come from procreation of the ``natural citizens'' or should a country be thankful of population growth from any source?
Thursday, March 03, 2011
Silence of the Laptop
You know it is wonky when I start to write in such a hurried manner at this time of the night on a week day evening.
``Drained'' probably doesn't quite start to explain the general affect that I am feeling these days. Over the past two to three weeks, I have started on an isolationist quest of sorts, removing myself steadily away from most of the semi-coerced social interactions. It is quite an interesting experiment, really. In the beginning, there was the entire feeling of discomfort, as though I had removed a large part of where my energies come from. But as time went by, I slowly cultivated that introvertedness within me that has been in hiding for a long while as I acted out the life that I was supposed to be leading, what with the whole extraversion nonsense.
Yet in the last three weeks or so, I've started to comprehend a new form of peace and quiet of the mind, where all I think of are work, geocaching, grad school and Aikido. The old distractions that seemed to plague me from the past seems to be rather subdued internally, and from that springs forth a new resolve that powers the introversion within.
Don't get me wrong, I've not really converted into a completely introverted character---that is just too impossible because I'm not some one dimensional person. What has really happened is that I have finally begun creating that bit of space for myself where I can start to actually calm down and examine cause and effect safe from the prying eyes and minds of the outsiders. While not as strong as the voices in my head before, there is at least a cognizance of what truly lies within my psyche from the perspective of my conscious mind.
It's a hard phenomenon to explain, really, partly because I lack the necessary processes and vocabulary to explain it. But the key aspect of it all is the restful nature that I'm feeling. Yes, I may be working longer hours than before, having reduced the ``lunch hour'' into something that is no longer than twenty minutes, but I seem to feel a little less stressed out, now that I have a little more control over myself.
Once upon a time, I used to not care too much about what others thought. Then I was taught to ``socialise'' and be more aware of the emotions of others. And now, having seen what kind of nonsense I had to put up with using that attitude, I have moderated that to something that is a little more cold than before, yet without a complete alienation of the people---they can still talk to me, but only if it is related to something that is required.
I think I'm finally starting to understand the concept of keeping my mouth shut, and speaking only when necessary.
Holding one's tongue takes discipline, the discipline to realise that there is no need to comment on everything that people say, the discipline to realise that there is no need to share knowledge that is not solicited, the discipline to realise that people are always, by nature, manipulative. But like many things in life, it starts off being hard, and as time progresses, becomes unexpectedly easier. And in this regard, being a weirdo does have its advantages after all.
Till next time.
``Drained'' probably doesn't quite start to explain the general affect that I am feeling these days. Over the past two to three weeks, I have started on an isolationist quest of sorts, removing myself steadily away from most of the semi-coerced social interactions. It is quite an interesting experiment, really. In the beginning, there was the entire feeling of discomfort, as though I had removed a large part of where my energies come from. But as time went by, I slowly cultivated that introvertedness within me that has been in hiding for a long while as I acted out the life that I was supposed to be leading, what with the whole extraversion nonsense.
Yet in the last three weeks or so, I've started to comprehend a new form of peace and quiet of the mind, where all I think of are work, geocaching, grad school and Aikido. The old distractions that seemed to plague me from the past seems to be rather subdued internally, and from that springs forth a new resolve that powers the introversion within.
Don't get me wrong, I've not really converted into a completely introverted character---that is just too impossible because I'm not some one dimensional person. What has really happened is that I have finally begun creating that bit of space for myself where I can start to actually calm down and examine cause and effect safe from the prying eyes and minds of the outsiders. While not as strong as the voices in my head before, there is at least a cognizance of what truly lies within my psyche from the perspective of my conscious mind.
It's a hard phenomenon to explain, really, partly because I lack the necessary processes and vocabulary to explain it. But the key aspect of it all is the restful nature that I'm feeling. Yes, I may be working longer hours than before, having reduced the ``lunch hour'' into something that is no longer than twenty minutes, but I seem to feel a little less stressed out, now that I have a little more control over myself.
Once upon a time, I used to not care too much about what others thought. Then I was taught to ``socialise'' and be more aware of the emotions of others. And now, having seen what kind of nonsense I had to put up with using that attitude, I have moderated that to something that is a little more cold than before, yet without a complete alienation of the people---they can still talk to me, but only if it is related to something that is required.
I think I'm finally starting to understand the concept of keeping my mouth shut, and speaking only when necessary.
Holding one's tongue takes discipline, the discipline to realise that there is no need to comment on everything that people say, the discipline to realise that there is no need to share knowledge that is not solicited, the discipline to realise that people are always, by nature, manipulative. But like many things in life, it starts off being hard, and as time progresses, becomes unexpectedly easier. And in this regard, being a weirdo does have its advantages after all.
Till next time.
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