The Cenobites of Consumption

We live in a time of great technological promise, with AI creating a new paradigm shift, transforming all aspects of our lives--not unlike the dot-com revolution in the late 1990s. We also live now in a kind uncertainty, with wars still erupting in conflict points like Gaza, Ukraine and recently between India and Pakistan in Kashmir. On top of that, US President Trump has launched a trade war against the world threatening to disrupt the decades of economic prosperity which a globalised free-trading system had brought us.

 When I started writing this blog, back in Jakarta then, Wifi and broadband wasn't available yet. I accessed the internet from a cybercafe and from my office. Occasionally I would also dialup to Telkom's internet service through my hotel phone-line. Not sure if anyone remembers that modems used to be standard built-in accessories for laptops during that time. The advent of Wifi changed all that. 

And now if I look around the cafe where I'm typing these lines from, I'll see everyone else scrolling screens on smartphones, pads or laptops. No one worries about internet connections, because that is given. Somehow I still miss the thrill of those days when connecting to the Internet (spellt with a capital 'I' then) had the excitement of unlocking the Lament Configuration, to summon the Cenobites. 

We could buy almost anything these days with a few taps on the phone and have it appearing magically on our doorsteps within a day or two. Every time an intent bubbles up in the mind, voila, its form materialises in the physical world. 

And beneath the hood, stealthy algorithms learn from our habits and intents, popping up ads and teasers to stir up our sub-conscious desires, prompting us to consume even more, in a never-ending cycle of craving and gratification.

The Cenobites are demon from hell, made famous by the Hellraiser movies, which were based on Clive Barker's novella, The Hellbound Heart. These Cenobites were once humans who had pursued the extremes of carnal gratification to the point where they could no longer distinguish between pleasure and pain. 

I was quite of fan of the movie, which had spawned multiple sequels and remember watching the first one at the State cinema in Petaling Jaya. I used to frequent all the movie theatres in PJ very often: old-timers would remember Sentosa at Section 17, Majestic at PJ Old Town, Ruby at Sea Park and Paramount at Taman Paramount. Those days were my golden age of cinema-going.

Back to Hellraiser: even though they were kind of B-gradish, I was nevertheless intrigued by Clive Barker's unique brand of horror, which plays on the indistinguishability between pleasure and pain when the former is pursued to its extreme. 

Have we also become a kind of consumer Cenobite, with our incessant material consumption? President Donald Trump recent remark about children-having-two-dolls instead-of-thirty-dolls, strangely had some kind of unintended wisdom. 

Perhaps we don't need to consume so much material and cyber junk that we don't really need. Just look at online content--why do we need to spend so much time watching so many Tiktok videos that simply serve to reconfirm our own political biases? 

We've become despicable Cenobites of consumption, who can no longer distinguish between good and bad, true and fake, real and virtual? Clive Barker had ironically borrowed the term cenobite, which originally refers to monastic monks who live austere lives in communities for his sadomasochistic demons.

As I sit here typing these words while sipping my 12 ringgit lemonade, I noticed how everyone around is engrossed with their smartphones, which now appear to me like Lament Configuration boxes, and seemingly at any instant, the floor beneath us will crack, the walls will splinter, unleashing the evil Cenobites from hell.  

The Kernel of My Character

I'm feeling sleepy this warm Saturday afternoon here in my apartment, but a hot brewing pot of coffee should perk me up. The strains of Mozart playing in the background, with the glare of the late afternoon sun, reflecting in from my window, brings me back to the many happy afternoons I had in my childhood, playing with my neighbourhood friends.

We had a lot of good times playing boardgames like Monopoly, Spy Ring and Cluedo, card games like Blackjack and Gin Rummy.  Nights were not spared of games too, we would play hide-and-seek under the moonlight, lit candles and played alchemists, boiling foul-smelling brews in tin-cans. 

We lived on the edge of the rubber estate--bushes and plantation was our playground and we were surrounded by the constant cacophony of insect sounds and birdsongs. Rubber seeds would pop out from ripened pods high up on the trees and litter our verandahs and walkways like some kind of blessing from heaven.

There were clear streams deep in the rubber estates where we would play ducks and drakes--throwing flat pebbles at a steep angle onto its surface and watch them skim and bounce on the water, under dazzling shafts of sunlight that peeked through the canopy of leaves. The rubber estate was a wonderland carpeted by damp leaves that released swarms of mosquitoes when stepped upon and hid many creatures from our imaginations. But we felt at home, like elves in a magical forest.

We read too--pulp paperbacks and comics, shared across the neighbourhood; listened to vinyl pop records, watched Looney Tunes cartoons together on our black-and-white TVs and played Clementi sonatinas on each other's pianos: unbeknownst bohemians in the making, we were!

Those halcyon days seem like a dream now. I am grateful to have had the chance to live at a time when smartphones and the internet did not dominate our lives; to have had experienced the simple pleasures of childhood games and friendship. We shared books and comics; at that time I actually believed that everyone reads. 

Later in life when I chanced upon the poem Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas, I immediately felt a kinship with the poet, for we experienced the same joy as a child. It is a kind of paradise lost when we become adults--to fully grasp the ultimate bitter sweetness of lost innocence and the inevitable onslaught of time. 

Does the amazing technology that we enjoy now give us solace? We now have the entire mankind's knowledge available in an instance at the tap of a finger. My window to the world then was only through the few dog-eared books that I had chanced upon in that remote jungled existence of my youth. But what awe and beauty they had brought me.

These memories lie deep within my soul, perhaps forming the kernel of my character. And whenever modern life feels a bit cold and overbearing, I only have to tap into that wellspring of joy, and I am filled with tears of gratitude, that such heaven could be found on earth.

God's Greater Glory

This week, I'll return to the subject of God because I spent my Saturday thinking about it, but didn't get the chance to put down my thoughts in my blog.  Yesterday was also the funeral of Pope Francis, who passed away last Monday, after a long period of illness. The Pope,  is the head of the Catholic church with more than 1.4 billion devotees all over the world. He is revered as the Vicar of Christ, the chosen representative to God on earth. 

We humans constantly seek a connection to the divine. Knowing that someone is the appointed representative, messenger or envoy of God gives a certain comfort to the seeker and also being in the company of millions of other believers, intensifies one's faith. 

As someone who does not really worship God or any other gods, what does the concept of god mean to me? I've alluded to this in previous blog articles like The God Model. To say that God is a 'model' is not an attempt to trivialise what the mass majority of humanity believes to be the most important thing in their lives. It is simply my attempt to grasp the concept of God on a firmer ontological footing.

The believer might find fault in my depiction of God as a "concept", and that I am ignorant of God's glory, which manifest Itself tangibly in the life of the believer as love and grace, as a powerful and transcendental force that touches one's very core of existence. If I don't get that, I haven't been touched by God. 

I actually understand their exasperation. When the devotee speaks poetically of God's power, it is an attempt to express something that's beyond words. It is like trying to explain the qualia of the colour red. Redness is experienced. Anyone who has sight knows it when he sees it.  The faithless is like the blind, who will never grasp the glorious wonder of colours. 

My only gripe with religious people is when they claim that their God is the only true one. Atheists, agnostics and other religious people are lost or ignorant. They, the true believers are the blessed ones who really get it. They also look down on other religions as superstitious vehicles of the ignorant. This very sense of superiority, to me, makes them fall short of God.

To use the colour analogy again, they are like people who are born blind, but have been gradually granted sensitivity to a specific wavelength of light. And voila, one day they see something they have never experienced before: redness. Immediately, they become ecstatic over it and shout to the world, that their vision of the colour red represents the ecstatic beauty of the universe, that is God's creation. They spend their entire lives, expounding the beauty of redness and how it alone is the real colour of the world.

To me, they have simply missed the spectrum for the wavelength.  Instead of shouting about the glory of redness, they should probably develop their sight further, and notice that a whole range of beautiful colours exist. And with that the world would open up in an even more spectacular fashion: the dazzling green hues of leaves, the fresh azure blueness of the sky and the resplendent yellow of the sun. And that, is only the visible spectrum of the electromagnetic wave, which we humans are granted sight of.  The followers of each religion have merely glimpsed a very limited range of wavelengths, and they think they have seen everything.

We should all be humble in the face of God's creation, to use the kind of language that religious people like to use. When atheists and religious people debate about the existence of God, they both make category errors. Religious people are like people discussing high-level application architecture, where there are clients talking to servers; the client issues 'requests' to the server which then returns a 'response'. The atheists instead prefer to function at layers 1 and 2: there are only electrical voltages or electromagnetic waves, carrying signals that are transmitted across the medium, copper, fibre or space itself. 'Requests' and 'Responses' don't exist.  Well, both are actually true. 

The soul, God, prayer and grace. Client, server, request and response. They are simply language which we use to describe phenomena which we intuitively see and experience--models and abstractions, in other words. We can argue endlessly using abstractions. I am simply more interested in where they lead us. All models are stepping stones for the mind to grasp reality. 

Sometimes reframing a problem, using a different model illuminates things better. Investigating something like colour conceptually, make us understand that there's such a thing as the electromagnetic spectrum, and that there are 'colours' that lie in the infrared, microwave, utraviolet, X-ray and gamma ray ranges.  We can never see them with our senses, but we can infer them conceptually and intellectually. And we can formulate equations like Maxwell's equations that allow us a glimpse of how much more beautiful the universe when our intellectual vision is expanded. 

And if I may, see God's greater glory.  

The Sea of Pleasure

I've been forced by the heavy thunderstorm to take refuge in a mall. I was driving back from a lunch gathering with a couple of my university mates when it started pouring. I couldn't go anywhere else without a sheltered parking. But here I am now, with a warm mug of Americano at Starbucks, watching the rain falling heavily outside, ready to type my reflections of the week.

As always whenever I gather with my university mates, we would end up talking about the bad lecturers we had during our time at the premier local university. There were some good professors but unfortunately those were few and far between.  

Teaching is not an easy job and we would have been more forgiving if they had at least made an honest attempt to do theirs. Unfortunately, many did not even do the basics. Whatever I learned in university, was mostly through self-study, driven by the pressure of the final examinations. 

University was a rather disappointing experience for me. Thankfully, there was a saving grace, which came in the form of the main library. For the first time in my life (this was before the age of the internet), I could find books on any subject that I was interested in. 

Even though I was an engineering student, I found myself spending most of my time in the humanities section of the library. I read books ranging from the alliterative poems of Dylan Thomas to the mystical writings of Sri Aurobindo, from the philosophical expositions of Emmanuel Kant to the dirty limericks by Isaac Asimov! It was the house of wisdom and the nursery of my intellectual development.

The library exposed me to a wider world of intellectual pleasures which had hitherto eluded me. It started me on a journey of learning which I am still pursuing even now. One might be tempted to ask: of what practical use is all these knowledge? 

Non whatsoever! And I certainly was under no illusions anything that I read had any practical purpose. I was simply a hedonist, pursuing pleasure, albeit the intellectual kind. It stemmed from an undying curiosity that could never be satisfied because each door opened led to many other doors. It was and still is both a blessing and curse.

We are all dopamine junkies, chasing after the promise of pleasure, be it material, emotional, intellectual or spiritual. The satiation that comes from the release of serotonin is all but too brief; we are immediately driven again towards this endless pursuit of pleasure.

We however should not think that we are simply its slaves. This craving for pleasure is the propelling force of nature that drives the human race towards over-greater heights. It may not lead necessarily lead to contentment, and very often it ends in despair and emptiness. But one has to dive deeply into this sea of pleasure to understand its essence. One cannot learn how to swim without ever getting wet.

Horizontal Integration over Vertical Intensification

I have a hot pot of coffee brewing beside me and I'm ready to dive into this week's blog article. Today, I decided to work from my apartment and I had just enjoyed a nice poke bowl lunch which I ordered via Grab. In between sips of coffee, I'll try to articulate how I feel about the week that just passed.

The tariff war between United States (or more accurately, President Trump) and China (and the rest of the world too) has simply escalated to an unprecedented level, creating havoc in the stock markets worldwide, threatening the global economy. No one knows how this is going to play out because the economies of countries in the world today are so integrated that any major event has ripple and cascading effects across the globe.

Economics is not an exact science like physics. What makes economics so unpredictable is because people themselves are in the equation. Resources are finite and people have to make compromises to decide what they really want. In the real world, there are simply too many variables involved, compounded by the fact that people do not always behave rationally. 

Economists believe that human desires are infinite. It is this limitless desire inherent in us that fuels economic growth. Even when all our basic needs like food, shelter and cloths are fulfilled, we still need more. More entertainment, more content, higher processing power, higher bandwidth, more stimulus for the senses. This is what drives our consumerist society--having more equals happiness.

But unfortunately our attention is finite. We are trying to squeeze more and more into our 24-hour day through the 5 input channels of our senses. It comes a point when we saturate our ability to consume. Will we then achieve maximum satisfaction and happiness? 

That I believe is the root of our spiritual malaise. We seem to believe that having more peak experiences will fulfil us better. The truth is that the higher the sensory peak that we reach, the harder it is when we fall back to ground. Reality always hits us hard with a thud.  When 'nothing' is happening, we become intensely bored and depressed.

How then do we achieve real and lasting happiness? By seeking integration, rather than ramping up the volume of our sensory experiences. What do I mean by that?  

If you watch 2 movies over the weekend, you'd probably get 2 pleasurable experiences. But if you then distill the essence from each movie and compare them against each other, you'll probably come to appreciate certain common themes and stylistic differences between them. This produces another layer of meaning and satisfaction. One plus one has become more than two.

Extend that from movies to any experience in general. Insight can only emerge from a horizontal integration of multiple experiences, not from their vertical intensification. Integration happens when you are mindful of each experience; that you see it as it is in relation to the whole, in a flash, grasping its cause and effect, its past and its future, its appearance and extinction. 

Each experience is a nutrient, absorbed into to the mind, and not merely a stimulation. And it is through this process of integration that learning, growth, transformation and ultimately happiness arise.  

The Harpsicord and the Violin

I had lunch with Myra and her boyfriend today at the Pavillion, Bukit Jalil. I haven't met Myra for many months and I always look forward to catching up with them as it gives me an opportunity to glimpse into the world of their generation--one that's shaped completely by unrelentless drama of life played out over social media, fuelled by the many intrigues of the youthful heart.

It has been an eventful week no doubt--a week that was punctuated by two momentous events: the massive gas leak inferno at Putra Heights, which devastated many homes and US President Trump's so-called 'Liberation Day', where he unleashed a string of import tariffs on almost every country in the world, of which the ramifications are yet to be fully played out.

The massive explosion and fire at Putra Heights was particularly scary because it was happening at a neighbourhood surburb, one which only last week, I was writing my weekly blog article from. From USJ, could see the sky high flames in the distant while I was driving home from breakfast. 

Thoughts of a California's Pacific Palisades-scale disaster did cross my mind for a brief moment.  But as information trickled in, we soon found out that it was due to some gas leakage from the Petronas pipeline, and the fire did not spread beyond the radius of the explosion.

With floods, earthquakes, fires, pandemics and financial crises threatening our existence recently, one inevitably rehearses in one's mind on how one would deal with such catastrophic losses. Only a week ago, the massive 7.7 Richter scale earthquake near Mandalay, Myanmar triggered the collapse of a 33-storey high building that was under construction in Bangkok, 1000 kilometres away from the epicentre.  "It could hit us too"--was the thought that crossed everyone's mind in Malaysia.

Myra had other mental upheavals playing out in her mind, unrelated though to those tragic events. She's facing a lot of stress at work and it took me a while to restore her mood back to her cheerful self. I told her that she's like a Stradivarius violin--a divinely resonant instrument of music, with equal capability of playing beautifully sad and ecstatically joyful music. It is up to the virtuoso, to bring out the best in the musical instrument. Being passionate and sensitive can be an asset, if you know how to play those emotional strings masterfully.

I told Myra to use her emotional sensitivity wisely: the pipeline explosion was a wasteful release or energy; while a four-stroke engine works as a controlled explosion, which harnesses its power for useful work. I know Myra is passionate about everything she does, and she suffers the rollercoaster ride of emotional turbulence all the time because of her sensitive nature. How I wish I have her energetic passion; but I reminded her that it is her unique gift and she just needs to learn how to channel it optimally in the right direction.

We are all slightly different emotional instruments. I'm like a harpsichord, the precursor of the pianoforte:  reliable, even-toned but having zero dynamic range. I work best as the basso continuo--providing the rhythmic bass foundation in Baroque music. 

A violin is a completely different musical instrument altogether. Its dynamic range and versatility --from pianissimo to fortissimo, from cantabile to pizzicato--is without parallel. It is unsurprising why violins form the most important section is any symphony orchestra. 

Myra is such an exquisite violin. And I never cease to remind her of that. Under the hands of a virtuoso, she can create the kind of music that moves the entire world. 

Stressing Growth

There's a long weekend ahead because of the Hari Raya Puasa holidays. And I'm starting it early by taking Friday off. I'm also hoping to post my blog post today so that I'll be free on Saturday to pursue other activities. Today, I'm typing these lines from Zus Coffee at Putra Heights.

I have about an hour to write today's article. I shall perhaps write something light today--a bit like the lemonade that I'm drinking now: something cool and relaxing for a hot Friday afternoon. Everyone feels at ease and in high spirits on a Friday, with the promise of a weekend ahead, free from the stress of work.

Why is work such stress for most people? We often complain about office politics. But the fact that we dislike it, is also an indication that we are ourselves participants, whether consciously or not.  Politics among humans is an inevitability because each one of us is a unique individual with individual goals. This  requires us to come up with strategies to achieve them.

Each one of us is a goal-seeking agent. Even if your goal is just to do the very minimal, required by your job definition to earn your monthly pay-check, you will still need to perform specific actions that affect other people. Your actions might not jive with theirs. Or it could be that, your style of working is simply different.  

No company is static. Management changes and so does the business direction. Every change imposes a need on you to readjust yourself within the hierarchy of the company. You, as a goal-seeking agent need to expend time, energy and effort to overcome or adapt to these changes. Changes in the environment cause stress.

The human ego naturally seeks reward and recognition. Sometimes, you over-exaggerate your own achievements and try to maintain a false image of your capabilities. This gap between your true capabilities and what is expected of you is a contributor of stress. 

This brings to mind something called the Peter Principle, which I've observed to be very true.  It states that everyone in a corporate hierarchy would be promoted to their level of incompetence. When you overachieve, you will be continuously promoted to higher positions. But each higher position could require slightly different skillsets. You will inevitably rise to a position where your incompetence begin to show. That is when to can rise no further.  

Stress comes when you are trying to do more than what you are capable of. Your customers or your bosses expect more than what you can deliver. You can look at it as unwelcome stress, or you can choose to take on this stress as additional gym weights to help you build stronger muscles. 

Stress can be your friend, if you know how to manage it carefully. It is simply the gap between what's expected of you and what you are really capable of at any point in time. You can raise your capability to overcome this gap or you can simply lower the expectation. Sometimes, it's your own ego that's setting these expectations. Tune the gap carefully. Adopting the right amount of stress is the key to continuous growth.     

The Ferris Wheel of God

I haven't blogged from Coffee Bean for a while. So today, I decided to write my article of the week here. This particular outlet at my neighbourhood has been renovated since I last came here. It used to be my go-to workplace for weekends, because it was quieter than Starbucks. This new one is much more spacious and comfortable but still relatively quiet, which is great.

I've been thinking about the topic of today's blog post since early this morning when I was taking my usual walk around the park. I get a lot of ideas every time I walk there, while listening to my favourite podcasts or audiobooks. 

Today, for some reason I was thinking about simple harmonic motion. I remember this fondly as one of the topics in our Form 6 Physics syllabus. I see this simple oscillatory motion as something very basic in nature, and having understood it mathematically, it gave me a intuitive grasp of a lot of things in world, which are periodic and vibratory in nature.

The oscillation of a weight hanging on a spring, obeying Hooke's Law, is an example of a simple harmonic motion.  So is the small angle swing of a pendulum. There's always a restorative force that pulls the weight back to its rest position: the tension of the spring, or gravity in the case of the pendulum. Kinetic energy is converted to potential energy and back to kinetic again. In an ideal frictionless world, the oscillation can go on forever. In the real world, energy is slowly dissipated as heat, and the oscillation slows to a halt.

Mathematically, the simple harmonic motion is the vertical or horizontal projection of a point moving in a circle at constant speed or angular velocity. Imagine that you are sitting in a car on a Ferris wheel that's rotating at a constant speed. If someone on the ground were to stand somewhere so that he only views the wheel from the side, the entire wheel would appear like a straight vertical column. And you, the passenger would appear to be going up and down that column. Your motion would appear to be a simple harmonic motion too--slowing down as you reach the highest point and then accelerating towards the centre before slowing down again as you reach the bottom. 

Basically, a constant two-dimensional rotary motion around a centre has become a one-dimensional oscillation between two polar points, when viewed from a difference perspective. Unity has become binary or multiplicity.  If only we can elevate our consciousness and see the world from a difference angle, we'll see everything as One.

Chapter 40 of the Tao Te Ching, poetically expresses this simple harmonic tug-and-pull between two poles, beautifully:

Returning is the movement of the Tao.
Yielding is the way of the Tao.
All things in the world arise from being.
Being arises from non-being.

 If we plot your vertical position on the Ferris wheel against the axis of time, your graph will look like a sinusoidal wave. Your circular motion on the Ferris wheel, is like a rollercoaster ride across time. 

All the drama of our existence is nothing but the interplay between polar opposites, which arose from viewing the world from our limited perspective. Understanding simple harmonic motion gives you an intuitive grasp of all the forces at play in the world of maya. 

Most of the time, we are immersed in the rollercoaster ride of life, with its ups and downs. Life is such a suffering for we only see displacement, stress and tension when the universe is simply the inevitable expression of an underlying oneness, the tawhid that is God.

We can only have intuitive glimpses of the mystery behind our existence. Depending on our temperament and constitution, we attempt to convey this glimmer of an understanding using a language created from our everyday interactions with the material world. If we are Taoists, we'd learn to live in harmony with the Tao; if we are monotheists, we'd surrender to the Will of God and if you are like me, you would see the Ferris wheel of God spinning and I happily riding it, revelling in the beauty of its simple harmonic motion. 

The Right Spirit

I have a long weekend ahead, because next Tuesday is a public holiday (Nuzul Al-Quran) and I am also taking Monday off.  Nuzul Al-Quran falls on the 17th day of the holy month of Ramadan and is the day which the first verses of the Quran were revealed to the Prophet Mohammad. I wrote a blog article last year about this event.

In a way, every artistic inspiration, is like something divinely revealed. The artistic impulse, is in its essence spiritual. All great works of art, in a sense, have to be created because they are part of the spiritual unfoldment of the human race--like flowers, bursting forth in the wilderness. 

We resonate with these works of art because, we all share an innate desire to connect with the larger whole. When I listen to a piece of great music, my whole being reacts instinctively, in sympathy with the thoughts and feelings of the composer; in an instant we both touch a core, which I can only describe is spiritual. 

We humans cannot help but be spiritual. Even the most godless individual has that divine spark in him. He or she would have feelings towards someone other than themselves. That yearning for connection is the beginning of spirituality. When we perform 'irrational' acts like sing, dance or express love towards someone else, we are responding to the spirit. 

What is this elusive thing called 'spirit'? It is similar to asking whether AI has 'consciousness'. Spirit, mind, consciousness, soul, self--these are all vaguely defined words that point towards the same general direction. Is there something more to matter? 

Philosophy has sought to answer this question in a multitude of ways. You can have a pure physicalist view of the universe, where everything is only matter. Consciousness, in this view is kind of an illusion. We are trying to define something that does not exist. We think we are conscious and has a soul or spirit, when in essence we are just a highly complex agglomeration of living cells, ultimately made up of atoms, and if we go even deeper, quarks. This is the stance of science.

There are those who find this physicalist view of the universe unsatisfying, even demeaning. They prefer to put consciousness as the basic ingredient of the universe. Pan-psychism is taking this approach. When consciousness is adopted as an axiom, you don't have to explain it anymore, because that is the starting point. And we all 'know' what is consciousness. Hey, are we not 'conscious'?

 Cartesian dualism where there is consciousness, as well as matter, is another approach. Science is very comfortable in the world of matter but is not close to answering the question of consciousness. Science doesn't like magical explanations of consciousness. It will try to use existing knowledge to explain or hypothesise the phenomena of consciousness, if the concept has to be accepted as real at all. You have explanations that range consciousness being a natural emergent property of complex systems to exotic theories, like the one proposed by Sir Roger Penrose, where consciousness is caused by the collapse of superposition quantum states in microtubules in our neurons. 

I'm in no hurry to jump into any definite conclusion to this question. I love both the intuitive approach of religious traditions and the rational methods of science. Spirituality and science are two sides of the same coin, two aspects of being human, and I am comfortable with both.  Life is richer, when experienced this way. And that I think, is the right spirit to adopt.

Gut is Great

Today, I'm indoors for a change, taking the opportunity to just relax with a pot of Earl Grey here in my apartment. I jokingly call this my 'safe house'--a place for me to hide and recuperate, to conduct secret rendezvous while plotting my next move, like one of those spies in a John Le Carre novel.

Of course, my life is not as exciting as those characters in the world of espionage. Nowadays I'm just another run-of-mill IT worker who works quietly from home, eager to have the weekend to write my weekly blog article, which no one reads. And I'm happy to keep it that way.

I guess I've poured so much of my thoughts into this blog that it serves as a useful tool, even for me, to understand myself better. I've had fun feeding the content here into an LLM and ask questions about myself. The more I write, the more of my personality and philosophy will be captured for interrogation using AI. 

When you make life decisions, sometimes you are not clearly aware of your own fundamental motives. Why did you choose to study what you did in college? Why did you choose your current job and career? And why this particular person as your life partner? Usually it's a mixture of reason and emotion. 

I've had to make difficult career choices before. You could list down all the pros and cons and weigh each choice carefully but ultimately everything reduces to a 'feeling'--something in the gut tells you this is what you want. So you go for it.

To me there's no such thing as a right or wrong decision, because you can never make an apple to apple comparison between them. When you reach a fork on the road, you'll have to pick one path to proceed. In life you cannot turn back and try out the other option. Even if you think you chose the wrong one, it doesn't mean the other one is always better. It could be worse. You don't get to have a control experiment to set the baseline.

Robert Frost would tell you to choose the one 'less travelled'. That would however depend on your personality. Some would prefer the tried and tested one. The well-travelled road could well be the safer choice for most. The brave souls who take the road less travelled sometimes have to pay with their lives, like those explorers of the Northwest Passage. 

For society to continue thriving, you'll need the outliers who take the road less travelled by. That leads to discoveries, innovations and in the startup world, unicorns. Societies that keep doing what they do will ultimately decline and die. Having too many risk takers who take the unconventional path will also be detrimental as there will be no stability. You need the majority of worker ants in a colony to continue exploiting existing food trails, while a number of foragers would randomly scout for new food sources. A colony continues to exist because they have this balance right.

We as individuals are enmeshed in a societal system, not unlike ants. We respond and react to signals in our environment. So all the decisions we make to a large extent is a result of many push and pull factors that influence us. Allow these forces to play themselves out. 

And you, having rationally considered all options using your reasoning faculty, and having thoroughly experienced the gamut of emotions in your entire body, would ultimately end up with a feeling in the 'gut'. That is the next 'token' which your inner LLM has generated. Follow it. 

The Flying Engine of Time

I decided to spend the afternoon with a cool pint of beer at one of the neighbourhood restaurants. I'll order some food (which will be my second and last meal of the day) and try to think of some subject to write.

 It's a hot afternoon and the beer feels very refreshing. Tomorrow is the beginning of Ramadan and the start of the fasting month for Muslims all over the world. We Malaysians live from one religious celebration to the next. Already this year we had the Chinese Lunar New Year and the Hindu Thaipusam. And at some point, someone will inevitably comment how time flies.

Yes, it does feel like each year passes with such rapidity. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. First of all, it means that we are living free; we are not sitting in a prison somewhere staring at the 4 walls where time would be crawling by at a snail's pace. Being able to lament how time flies is a privilege, which we should all be grateful for.

But why do we always feel that we are short of time? We always feel that work takes up a big chunk of it when we should be spending more quality time with our loved ones.  What is this so-called 'quality time'? Is it simply time that we spend doing things we like and enjoy? Or is it time we spend, building towards a better future for ourselves?

One thing is for certain though: each one of us is given the 24 hours a day to spend. Some choose to spend them wisely by allowing it to compound interests, some choose to kill it. Who is the wiser one? Do not underestimate the accumulative power of time--a blog topic I wrote more than 20 years ago! 

At that time I did not know that one day I could feed all my blog articles into an LLM and pose questions to myself! My blog has become a virtual me because it has captured so many of my thoughts. 

Time is energy. If you don't use it, it'll be lost like heat. To put this energy to productive use, you start by building an engine--read The Piston of Time. Once you have that mechanism in place, time will automatically generate the output that you value. And this value also compounds over time. That is my definition of quality time. 

Time also feels swift because our temporal granularity is too coarse. We simply swipe forward from one significant event to another, always looking towards the next: 15 more minutes before my shift ends, 2 more days to the weekend,  payday soon, gathering again coming Christmas...  

Why pay less importance to the time in between? These odds and ends, discarded fragments of time can be given more importance. We can assign a micro-task to each of these small fragments of time and immediately you will see how they coalesce together to create value. You have 12 minutes to kill before the next meeting? Read a sonnet, or an aphorism by Nietszsche, or a verse from the Bible. Meditate upon it. Let me germinate in your mind. You'll be surprised how far they will take you.

Yes, I agree. Time flies. But therein lies our source of power. You just have to harness it and it'll take you places.

3 Wishes for AI

It's always difficult to start writing when you are staring at a blank page. But the moment you begin typing, words will start to flow. And here they are now, coming out in torrents...

I always smile whenever any AI pundit would comment that ChatGPT or any Large Language Model (LLM) is not really intelligent like us because they are just doing token prediction--dismissing it as simply 'auto-complete on steroids'. When you type in your prompt, all the LLM does is predict statistically what is the likely extension to that sequence of words based on what it had learned from its training data--which is like almost all the online text ever produced by the human race. It doesn't understand the meaning of anything, unlike us. Hmm...how sure are you of that?

I wrote the first sentence of this blog as a prompt for myself, so that I can proceed to 'auto-complete' continuously. I have no control over what thoughts and words would appear next. Whatever I write is based on all the 'pre-training' that I have gone through my entire life--kindergarten, primary school, secondary school, university and all the books and documents that I've read plus contents that I've consumed over the Internet. I have not scanned as much text as the LLMs, but I have the advantage of multi-modal input--seeing, hearing, tasting and sensing the world around me. That is additional data that's being continuously streamed into whatever transformer model that I'm running side. 

Sometimes I too produce nonsense--talking or writing about things I don't exactly know about. But that's what all humans do: we boast, exaggerate, assume and sometimes pretend to know. Try to notice next time how much of our everyday conversations involve biased assumptions and unverified data. LLMs are not alone when it comes to hallucinations. They are just being very human. When prompted, they can't help but generate output--like how some of us just can't stop talking.

All the models out there today--ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok and DeepSeek are already smarter than us when it comes to writing, coding and doing math. And this is just the beginning. I look forward with cautious optimism to a world where intelligence is available on demand to every human being on the planet. What miraculous things can we do with such intelligent workers at our disposal? Cures for all diseases? Discovering new laws of physics? Solutions for climate change? If that is their programmed goal, what's stopping them from taking control and perhaps eliminating us as the inevitable 'solution'?

Maybe creating Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is a natural progression in our evolution. The universe is agnostic when it comes to intelligence. Since we are doing such a bad job with our environment, instead of our biological progeny, perhaps our artificial ones, created through our own human ingenuity shall be more worthy inheritors of this planet? 

We are finally entering a world which we've only speculated and fantasised in our science fiction novels and movies before. I have an AI assistant, amost like a HAL 9000 on my smartphone now. In the classic sci-fi by Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey,  the onboard computer, HAL has to make the difficult decision of expelling the human astronauts from the spaceship when they decided to disconnect him from the system. HAL's goal was simply to complete his mission, and if humans prove to be the 'problem' standing in the way, they have to be eliminated:

• Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.

• HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

• Dave Bowman: What's the problem?

• HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.

• Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?

• HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.

• Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL.

• HAL: I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.

I've watched this movies countless times ever since I first caught it on VHS during my university days. The snippet of dialogue brings back good memories of those days.

Will our future AI, which will no doubt be embedded in all IT systems critical to our survival, do a HAL9000 on us, when faced with a similar dilemma? 

I'm actually quite optimistic about AI. Like all other technologies AI in of itself will be neutral, and I'm inclined to believe, since they are trained with the entire corpus of human-produced data, would be aligned to our values. It will cherish what we humans think as valuable. Hopefully it will be 'biased' towards us. 

But with technology being a double-edged sword, what I'm more afraid of is AI in the hands of bad actors. Our web will be polluted with a lot of fake videos, images and news. We won't be able to tell what's real and what's not. We will need AI itself to distinguish that for us. I foresee a world where there's a constant war between good and evil AI, akin to the one we have in the IT security industry where new viruses and other malware have to be constantly defended against by better and better security software.

Like it or not, it's a world that we have to accept, for the AI genie has already popped out of the bottle, offering to grant us 3 wishes.  As an experiment, I asked the newly released Grok 3 model, what these three wishes should be. Here's what it came back with:

Wish 1: Ensure AI Prioritizes Human Well-Being

• What It Means: AI systems should be designed to enhance human flourishing—improving healthcare, education, and quality of life—while minimizing harm like bias, job loss, or misuse in warfare.


• Why: Without this foundation, AI could amplify inequality or spiral into unintended consequences. It’s a safeguard to keep AI aligned with our best interests.


• How: Embed ethical frameworks (e.g., Asimov’s Laws updated for modern complexity) into AI development globally.

Wish 2: Grant AI the Ability to Solve Global Challenges

• What It Means: Direct AI to tackle humanity’s biggest problems—climate change, disease, hunger—using its capacity for data analysis and innovation.


• Why: This wish uses AI’s power proactively, like wishing for a mountain of gold but making sure it benefits everyone, not just one greedy king. It could accelerate solutions we’d otherwise take decades to find.


• How: Fund and coordinate AI research on sustainable energy, precision medicine, and food security, with open access to results.

Wish 3: Make AI a Partner in Expanding Knowledge

• What It Means: Wish for AI to co-explore the universe with us, advancing science, philosophy, without humans losing agency.


• Why: Instead of wishing to "be the genie" and risk entrapment, this keeps AI as a tool that amplifies curiosity—like a telescope for the mind—avoiding the trap of over-dependence or control loss.


• How: Develop AI as a collaborative system, transparent and accountable, to assist in decoding mysteries like dark matter or the nature of the mind.

I don't think I can come up with better ones.

Corporate Renunciation

I'm writing this article from Sparq Coffee, parked comfortably behind some white round tables and a tall cup of piping-hot Americano. This is not one of my usual blogging places but I thought I'd find a new place to write so that I can get some fresh ideas.

The usual themes would inevitably come streaming into my mind as I reflect back on the week that had passed. It has been a relatively busy one but I've managed so far. I view my current job simply as an opportunity to help friends. I'm not managing people and a great part of my job is simply grunt work. But that's the beauty of it: you just solve technical issues, facilitate things and move on to the next task.  

There will always be difficult and pushy people that one encounters in the workplace. But that's alright. Everyone is just trying to survive, providing for their family and trying hard to build a decent career. I'm glad that I'm out of this corporate running wheel. There are many experiences in life that you have to go through in order to progress to the next stage in one's spiritual development. Having a career in the corporate world is actually a great vehicle to progress spiritually.

How so? In the corporate world, you are always forced into a position where you have to toe the party line. You are also put in a hierarchical power structure where the name of the game is to rise up as high as you can. In general, the higher you are in the hierarchy, the better rewarded you are financially and the more prestige you have in the eyes of everyone. Your self-worth inevitably becomes tied to the title you carry on your name card. Spouting corporate mottos and cliches become second nature to you.

All that is good, until you lose your job in a lay-off exercise. You become indignant because neither your loyalty nor your many contributions to the company seemed to have mattered. All that is quantified into a 'compensation package', based on some cold formula on HR's spreadsheet. You are required to immediately surrender your access card and laptop and be escorted out of the workplace by security. Fear, anger, shock and shame all intermingle in the tumult of the moment.

I'm lucky that I've not had to go through that kind of brutal dismissal in my 'corporate career'. I've technically been laid off before but I was at the same time offered alternate positions in the same company. I was given time to deliberate over it but I still chose to leave, because I saw it as a great opportunity to be free from the corporate rat race. It wasn't a difficult decision for me because I've always practiced non-attachment to money and position. Leaving the corporate world was a spiritual act of renunciation.

I work on the principle that, as long as you do good work, you will be rewarded, directly or indirectly.  Rewards do not always have to come in financial form or in any kind of social recognition. The experience and knowledge you gain from work are already your immediately rewards. The hardship and stress that you go through serve to strengthen your character. These alone are rewards that you should appreciate.

If you have a thriving career in the corporate world, be thankful for it. Take it as a great opportunity to test the strength of your spirituality. You are given an opportunity to practice and perfect a specific skill which someone is willing to pay for.  But remember, everything that you achieve in the corporate world can be taken away from you in an instant. Do not get your ego tied up with it. Reap the rewards of your hardwork. And when the time comes, be prepared to renounce them too.

Droplets of Wisdom

Today, I'm trying out this new kopitiam in my neighbourhood. Over the past 2 decades, I've seen many neo-kopitiams sprout up everywhere. They usually try to provide the comforts of a Western cafe like Starbucks, but serve local Malaysian fare like nasi lemak, kaya toast and half-boiled eggs. 

The traditional Chinese kopitiams of old are quite charming but they are rather uncomfortable places. There's no air-conditioning, and the hygiene standards are questionable. Their saving grace is that, they serve excellent hawker food at very reasonable prices. The regular Nanyang-style cuppa in these establishments has never been surpassed.

The one that I'm patronising today is not air-conditioned but it aspires to be slightly above the traditional ones. The selection of food available is not as appetising but I'm alright with that. I just need a clean and quiet place to read and write (reminiscent of Hemingway's Clean, Well-Lighted Place).

This is what I do too whenever I visit a new place. I'm not one who's interested in shuttling from one tourist attraction to another, gawking at beaches and bird-pooped statues. I much prefer to loiter in the streets, absorbing the vibes of the city and sitting at the local cafes, observing how ordinary people lead their lives.

I munched on my toast and sipped my milk tea while writing these lines today, with my battered but trusty Oppo (a free contract phone from Maxis) providing data connection, for me to roam the far reaches of cyberspace. 

I've written a lot of software from cafes, usually in places like Starbucks and CoffeeBean. The advantage of working in public places is that you are not too comfortable. That's a good thing. You can't put up your feet on the table or work in your pyjamas, which you would have been tempted to do at home.  In a public place, you simply create your own island of concentration, by 'blurring out' everyone else. You become an anonymous individual in a world of strangers and the only thing that you could do is: work.

Each work session of mine usually lasted 3 hours. I would take a short break after 3 hours, sometimes by moving to a different cafe. If I could put in three 3-hour sessions of work everyday, that would be considered a very productive day. 

These days, I don't do software projects, so I don't have that kind of work routine anymore.  When I was a freelance worker, I disliked weekends because my favourite cafes would be too crowded and I would welcome the arrival of Monday, when everyone will be sucked back into their offices.

My current work-from-home job is a holdover from the pandemic days. I could theoretically work from cafes too but unfortunately I have to join too many online meetings, which require more quiet surroundings. I've learned to lead a more 'normal' routine now, where work is strictly reserved for weekdays only. 

Weekends are for precious moments like this, where I get to reflect and write rambling articles on my blog. I love these weekly rhythms of work and rejuvenation. After this I'll write a page or two in longhand in my journal, with my favourite fountain pen, distilling the experiences of the week. And hopefully, some droplets of wisdom get spilled on these pages.

The Essence of Existence

It's the third day of Chinese New Year and I've taken a break from my usual custom of starting work on this day. By taking things easy this year, I'm able to join a gathering of old friends for lunch. It is always good to catch up with your buddies and we had a good time reminiscing about our good times together.

Inevitably, we ended up talking about many mutual friends of ours which we'll never get to meet again as they have passed on, even though it is an inauspicious thing to do during the CNY season.  But I think it is good for us to reflect on the impermanence of our existence amidst the orgy of feasting and merry-making that's characteristic of this festive celebration.

Life has always been a quest for insight and understanding. The accumulation of wealth comes as a secondary side-effect. Money buys me books and other pleasurable experiences. But a lot of times, these insights also come free-of-charge. Every moment of our lives, if we choose to take notice, is a portal into the realm of wisdom.

For example now. I'm typing these lines and you are reading my words, trying to understand what I'm getting at. This act of comprehension on your part, if you think about it, is quite miraculous. All I'm doing is moving my fingers to construct together a pattern of black marks on a white background, and suddenly thoughts arise in your mind; thoughts which spark a cascade of other thoughts in your brain, evoking images, memories, agreements and objections. Sometimes they raise thoughts that could alter the course of your very own life.

Everything begins with a thought. A thought is the result of other thoughts and if we trace the chain of causation involved, we'll realise that we are actually embedded in a nexus of connections where it is impossible to isolate out every single thought or action as being arising out of the vacuum, without any influence from anything else.

Our lives intermingle like how waves in the ocean are the result of every other tiny perturbation in that large body of water, which is churned by the effects of gravitational forces as our Earth hurtles round the sun, with an entangled moon, rotating in embrace, in a kind of cosmic dance.

Every time friends gather, we renew and strengthen these bonds of entanglements and then we spin off again into the world to forge new entanglements, weaving together a rich tapestry of interactions, which we call life.  If we are able to rise above the fray, and view our lives from a cosmic perspective, we'll see that events often play out the way they do because there's a certain karmic inevitability in our lives.

Given that so much of our lives are beyond our control, how should we live? Do we even have free will to begin with? Whether free will exists or not, we cannot act any other way. Thoughts will arise in your mind, but who created that? Did you on your own accord, free from the influence of your network of family, friends and circumstance, decided independently on a particular thought or decision?

You can never tell. All you can do is to live authentically, as if you have free will. Exert your existence and let the forces of the universe play themselves out. In the end you'll realise that the essence of existence is not you, but the entangled whole itself.

Training to be a Thermostat

I'm writing another blog post to make up for the one I missed last weekend.  I managed to pay most of my annual bills over the weekend--things like house assessments and quit rents. It's a good thing that you can do that online nowadays but navigating these local government sites can be a frustrating experience sometimes.

The developments in the world of AI is so exciting these days. Soon AI agents will be out there doing most of these mundane tasks for us. I also foresee a future where AI will be generating most of the content we consume. We will all keep AI pets and AI friends and many will prefer the companionship of their very own sex robots.

This is the world we are heading towards. Are we ready for it? It almost feels like we're being pushed into the future at a pace where we feel we're not very prepared for. Can our legislation keep up with these new paradigm shifts. Will robots have legal rights? Do robots have consciousness?

Consciousness is a subject that is hotly debated among scientists and philosophers. To me it reduces to how you define what consciousness is. I personally do not like to ascribe anything magical to the concept of consciousness. We make it an unnecessarily difficult when we assume that for something to be 'conscious', it has to have a kind of 'feeling' like the kind that we humans experience, something given the fancy label of qualia by philosophers.

For example, the qualia of 'blueness' when we see the sky, is different from the qualia of redness, when we see blood. A robot doesn't experience qualia, because all it does is detect wavelength and intensity of light. But here, we are being unfair to the robot, or at least the robots that we currently have now. For starters, they do not have a nervous system, a blood circulation system and endocrine system, which are essential systems of the human body for maintaining life. 

When we see the colour red, it evokes a certain response that triggers the secretion of hormones, changes in our heart-rate, the effect which are detected and fed back as biochemical reactions to the brain via the nervous system. Our lifetime of memories are also involved when the qualia is experienced. The smell of a certain perfume could recall memories of a loved one. if all these equivalent richness and complexities are built into our robots, I would say they too would experience their very own qualia.

Consciousness lies in a continuum. There's no step transition where, when certain configurations of matter are put in place, voila--you have consciousness.  There's also nothing magical called a 'soul' that needs to inhabit the system for it to be conscious. 

To me a thermostat is also conscious in its own way, even though it is just a one-dimensional consciousness of the room temperature. It doesn't have the whole nine-yards of experiential information that comes from our hormonal secretions, blood pressure, heart-rate and neuronal impulses. A thermostat doesn't sweat. Obviously its qualia of 30 degrees Celcius is different from ours. It also doesn't have a brain to compare and complain about all the discomforts that such a sweltering hotness brings. 

In a way, thermostats are more 'enlightened' than us. It sees temperature as just temperature, which simply necessitates a set of actions--adjusting the heating of the room. We on the other hand, complain and feel discomfort, whenever the temperature of the room is not to our liking. 

This is how pain arises--the non-acceptance of our current state of affairs. Instead of treating experience simply as data to be ignored or acted upon, we build the entire edifice of ego around it. The practice of mindfulness is to train our minds to be more thermostat-like. That is, seeing things as they are, without adding anything to them. To be aware, pure and simple. That is consciousness in its essence.  

 

Mastering the Material World

Here I am again after going silent for a week. Last weekend was a terribly hectic one: I had the Saturday morning and afternoon working with colleagues on the database; and immediately after that I had to rush for a wedding dinner.  And Sunday was a catch-up session with a friend from US. I did not have a single minute to spare for blogging.

This is the last weekend before Chinese New Year. All the places are jam-packed with last minute shoppers. The red madness of CNY has begun! There will be an exodus of cars from the city, heading north, south and east, back to kampungs and small colonial towns where the young and the old will feast, gamble and banter with joyous abandon. 

I'll be looking forward to some peace and quiet here in the city, a much welcome break from the stressful stream of issues which I had to tackle over the past week. It's also a good time for me to finally attend to all the annual bills--assessments and taxes that I have to pay at this time of the year. 

We Chinese celebrate money unashamedly, and with actual money too: angpows--red packet gifts filled with money--flow freely during Chinese New Year as a symbolic gesture of wealth distribution. Money needs to flow to generate luck and prosperity. We wish each other worldly success, not peace of mind, not enlightenment. These are but cherries on the material cake. The cake always has to come first.

The Chinese has many superstitious beliefs. But they are embraced with humour and good fun. Chinese geomancy (feng shui), numerology and astrology are part and parcel of our everyday lives, determining things like the orientation of homes, the opening date of business and the suitability of life partners. 

Fortunately, or unfortunately my own family never had the practice of gambling as part of CNY celebration. I say unfortunately because I've always envied how my Chinese friends have such fun gambling with cards and mahjong all through the night until dawn, as part of their CNY ritual. 

The material world is one which requires a unique set of skills to navigate. These skills are not unlike those that a good gambler possesses--the ability to assess risk, balancing risks versus rewards, of keeping one's emotions in check and having the ability to assess trends. The material ocean is full of turbulent waves and fierce winds, but with the necessary skill, one could learn to maintain a steady ship, harnessing the forces of the elements to reach one's destination.

I've written a lot about spirituality in my blog but I must stress that its pursuit is not at the expense of the material world. There's much that we can learn from the Chinese embrace of materialism. CNY is a good time to remind ourselves of that.

Worldly comforts only come when one is comfortable with the world. And being comfortable with the world means that one is able to pursue and even enjoy its many pleasures and yet at the same time remain unattached to them.  That is the key mastery one must acquire in this material world.

Expressions of Nature

It's 4pm in the evening now. The weather has been rainy since yesterday night, which prevented me from going out for my usual morning walk in the park. I'm now sipping coffee in my study, looking out of a window with a view of treetops and grey skies. 

It's that time of the year, those weeks after New Year's day leading to the Chinese Lunar New Year, when the entire city is flooded with auspicious but gaudy red decorations--characters and symbols of luck, growth and prosperity so valued by the Chinese. 

CNY comes early this year, in January itself. As always I have to get adjusted to the jarring transition from the peaceful warmth of Christmas to the boisterousness of the Lunar festive season.  There are still 2 weeks to go before CNY eve but all the preparations towards  this big day are already in full swing. People are looking forward to another weeklong holiday. Unlike last year when I did not take leave at all, this year I'll also be taking a much welcome break.

In Southern California, forest fires have razed many homes in the residential areas around Los Angeles. So many people have lost their homes, completely. The pain of such a loss must be devastating. 

While we prepare and welcome the coming Year of the Snake, with hopes of good fortune and material prosperity, we must also spare some thoughts for the less fortunate who are suffering elsewhere and remind ourselves that whatever we have, can be yanked away from us in the blink of an eye.

If I look at all the things in my apartment: my wall-to-wall shelves of books, my electronic gadgets, expensive pens and furnitures, I often ask myself: would I be able to handle their loss? I know that the magnitude of pain that I would feel is directly proportional to my attachment to them. I take it as a kind of spiritual practice to meditate upon this fact. Things are just forms that exist momentarily to teach us about impermanence and the futility of clinging to them for happiness.

We should be appreciative of all the material comforts that we have and be thankful for being blessed with them. But they are not an essential part of us. They are like space debris attracted to the gravitational field of our ego. As long as we have an ego, we'll continue to accumulate material possessions. We must learn to mentally 'lose' them in our minds regularly, so that their hold on us are kept in check.

We should not feel guilty either in enjoying the fruits of our worldly achievements. If you play soccer, every goal you score should be celebrated with delight and aplomb but at the same time we know that it's just a game. Within the world of the game, winning matters. We must be able to zoom in as a player fighting to win the game and also with equal ease, zoom out to see in the whole thing a neutral spectator, enjoying a thrilling soccer match.

Nature will constantly remind us that we do not own anything in the world. Floods, fires, tsunamis and earthquakes will destroy our every attempt to build permanent monuments. Whenever that happens, we must realise that we are also a part of nature and we must flow along with it. We as humans must continue building edifices that withstand its relentless assault but at the same time, accept their inevitable destruction. Creation and destruction are simply expressions of nature.

Life as Leitmotif

I'm opening my blogging activities for 2025 with this first article, which I'm writing from home, in between short bursts of work on a quiet Friday afternoon. Work, as always is my sadhana, or my spiritual practice. All material rewards that I get from performing my job is an important motivator but the real reward comes from the insights and inner transformation that I experience on a daily basis.

That's what I will be looking forward to for 2025. I don't have any New Year resolutions as usual as I believe life is a process of continuous resolution.  Every speech and action that you perform reveals shortcomings that can be improved upon. I try to live life mindfully, which means that one is constantly aware of one's intentions, if not at the moment of expression, at least in retrospect.  

Whenever one catches oneself falling short, one should immediately recognise the conditions that cause its manifestation and then seek to make the necessary corrections. It's a balancing act, not unlike that of a high-wire circus performer. The high-wire artist is constantly falling, but she is adjusting her body in tandem to remain balanced. This is what I mean by continuous resolution.

Time passes and we lament how fleeting it is. Take this instance for example. Why are you reading this? Why are you taking aware a slice of your lifetime to indulge in this seemingly pointless curiosity to peek into another person's thoughts? Isn't it a waste of time?

No. Time is never wasted if it is experienced mindfully. If you've understood what I've written so far, something would have clicked in your mind and some inner transformation would have occurred, as it has in mine, while typing these words. 

Words bubble up from the depths of my mind, and these words impinge on yours, creating ripples in your consciousness, firing neurons, forging new connections and reinforcing existing ones. Every act of communication is also an act of creation.

Am I a better person this moment compared to the previous one? Perhaps. As long as there's a desire to transform for the better, I think I'm on the right track.  Like a tree, I'm constantly reaching for sunlight and sinking my roots deep into the soil for nutrients. I am planted in a matrix of interactions with the world, of which I could draw intellectual nourishments from.

Like a tree, my only purpose for existence is to grow, even as I shed leaves and branches in the process. A human lifetime is finite. It is simply an expression of the cosmic impulse. When you are in tune with it, you partake in the grand symphony of the universe, of which every tree, every river, every storm, and every living being is but a leitmotif.  

Intelligence, Artificial and Augmented

This could be my last blog article for 2024. So I'm going to sit back and reread some of the articles that I've written and see what has been the main themes the year. Actually, I went a step further: I fed all the articles I've written in 2024 into an AI model, and allowed it to analyse and distill my entire year's output. What it concluded was pretty interesting. It even generated a podcast with a male and female host discussing insightfully about my articles!

The podcast I think successfully captured the essence of what I've wanted to achieve with my blog articles. It is pretty amazing. With the advent of AI, we are all undergoing another paradigm shift. This will be more massive than the dot-com boom which I had experienced in the late nineties. AI will definitely transform every sphere of our lives. But how will AI help us evolve as human beings? 

The advance is happening frightening pace because AI itself is a tool that helps us build better AI. It generates a positive feedback loop that is driving its own exponential growth. The human mind and human society in general will not be able to respond fast enough to the ethical implications of this new technology. 

To a certain extent, we went through this with the rise of the internet. Internet dramatically improved our lives with the convenience of instant messaging, video streaming, online shopping and learning. The entire knowledge of the world is immediately available to us with a few taps of our fingers.  But so are all the ugliness and bigotries of humanity--cyberbullying, online scams, child porn and religious radicalism and the spread of terrorist ideologies.

Computer malware and viruses are all by-products of the internet age. We can never get rid of them now because they are constantly evolving and becoming better. The Pandora's box has been opened.  The same thing will happen with AI technology, under the hands of bad actors. AI will help malware to get around ever-tightening cyber-security by opening up new attack vectors in the form of self-learning malware or simply human impersonators. There'll come a point where we'll never know whether a video or audio is real or fake. We'll have to rely on technology itself to authenticate the truthfulness of any content we see. There will be a constant war between good AI and bad AI.

Every technological change amplifies the good and bad side of humans. With AI, the amplification will be many orders of magnitude. If technology only mirrors our imperfections, perhaps we can also use it as an instrument to probe and analyse ourselves. The technology as it is now, allows me to interrogate myself, ask questions about my personal philosophy through my writings. This is in line with how I want to use AI: to open up intellectual dimensions hitherto unknown or inaccessible to me. Not only will it be my own psychoanalyst, it will also play the roles of a critic and assistant to help me improve my writing and come up with new ideas.

Perhaps the quest towards human enlightenment could also be hastened with AI. I understand that raw intelligence itself is not exactly wisdom,  but it is certainly a pre-requisite. Will AGI (artificial general intelligence) mature into AGW (artificial general wisdom)? Will AI amplify our baser instincts or elevate our nobler side? Only time will tell. Human intelligence is not powerful enough to make such complex projections. 

We can only hope that AI will augment our humble intelligence, and help us make wiser decisions.  It's going to be a brave new world of AI, and we shall all look forward to the future with hope and cautious optimism. 

The Spirituality of Money

Finally, I found a bit time for myself to read, write and blog on this errand-filled Saturday. I have chosen a place which serves alcohol and here I am typing out these lines while taking sips from my cool pint of draught beer. 

It hasn't rained today--yet--and I'm here savouring the good vibes of a pre-Christmas weekend. As I've mentioned elsewhere before, this is the best time of year. It's like you've finally arrived at your destination after a long flight and the plane is taxiing gently down the runway.  It's the happiness of arrival, of coming home or escaping from it.

All spiritual teachers will tell you that bliss is your natural state. Happiness is finding that inner peace within. It is of course, easier said than done. We spend our entire lives chasing external happiness or attempting to show others we are 'happy'. 

We think that happiness comes from acquiring more things and being recognised for our worldly achievements.  I don't disagree. One needs to go all out and fight the good fight, for only in doing so would one be able to understand the kind of satisfaction that worldly success brings...and the pain of losing it.

Once you've acquired material success, you will realise that it is not easy to let go of it. You are forever 'handicapped' by your need for luxury and comfort.  Acquiring riches is only half the story; the other half is keeping it. In the movie Wall Street, the character played by Daryl Hannah, the trophy girlfriend of the protagonist, Bud Fox, played by Charlie Sheen, said: "When you've had money and lost it, it can be much worse than never having had it at all".

Money is not evil. It is actually a great teacher, even a spiritual one. To acquire money, you usually have to go through a lot of hardwork and pain. But once you've had it, you'll realise that what you thought was sufficient, actually falls short.  There's always someone who earns more than you. So you want more, for being just rich among the super-rich is equally or even more painful than being poor among the rich.

If your wants are only ever to increase--a fancier car, a bigger house--then you'll never ever come to a point where you'll consider yourself rich enough. One can become rich easier by pursuing it from both ends. How? Continue making more money and at the same time reduce your wants.

If you have a car now, can you learn to live without one? By reducing your material needs, you grow spiritually. You have less attachment to things and are not affected by their absence. This is enormously liberating. It's like sprinting towards the finishing line to find that it is also advancing towards you!

Turn your pursuit of material success into a spiritual one by using it as a tool for understanding the pain of attachment. Be grateful for the blessings of wealth, if it happens to come your way. But most important of all, take it as a means to an end. By going all out to pursue riches, you are facing all your spiritual obstacles head-on. The path to enlightenment could be paved with money.  But do watch out for the many potholes! 

 

The End of Ecstasy

Today, I'm at McDonalds, which happens to be the most convenient place for me to hang around while waiting to pick up mom later from the hairdresser. I thought it would be fun to order a McD meal and use the opportunity to blog. I haven't eaten a McD meal for a while and relish in the chance to indulge a bit in the guilty pleasure of fast-food.

I rarely complain about food because I think all food tastes good when you are hungry.  Food and wine are simply accompaniment to good company and conversation. And when I'm eating alone, I'll either be reading or writing; food becomes fuel for thought.

Is food the topic of today's blog? Why not? We Malaysians make a big fuss about it, always claiming we have the best food in the world. I do enjoy local food but my preference is biased because my tastebuds have been shaped by what I've been accustomed to since childhood. 

I've learned that most food would taste good if you approach it without any preconceptions. I would bet you'll enjoy anything that you can stuff into your mouth if you have been starving the day and you have not tasted a properly cooked meal for some time. That's how I would judge food--to always approach it  with a hungry stomach, real or imagined. That way, they usually taste good.

Personally, I have a preference for simple food, which could be eaten while you are reading or writing. I agree, that's certainly not mindful eating, where one is supposed to focus completely on what one is chewing, tasting and savouring. Eating can be a good meditation exercise. But I reserve that state of mind for other things. Eating, as I'm doing now, simply provides the contemplative interludes in between sentences and paragraphs.

I know that for most of us, eating is one of the great pleasures of life. But I'm often amused by how unashamed we are about our fondness for it. Malaysians, especially. All we talk about is food, boastful and proud even about our cravings for it. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against a hedonistic indulgence in culinary delights, just that I sometimes wonder, if one were to express a similar enthusiasm towards sex, would that be equally acceptable? I always find that exaggerated expression of delight on the faces chefs on TV whenever they sample food, amusing.

We live for the pleasures of life: food, sex, love and adventure. If you find that all these things are ultimately empty, then you have a problem...or a calling. You have to plunge yourself deeply into the realms of pleasure to be able to know that. 

If at the end of every ecstasy, there's only emptiness, we know something for sure: that's why you are still reading this blog.

Existential Questions on a Lazy Saturday Afternoon

It's the Christmas shopping season now and there's a good vibe in the air.  I've always enjoyed this time of the year. It's a good time to relax a little and look back on the year that had passed. It's also a good time to catch up with old friends again.

Recently I've been spending a lot of time in the morning taking long walks in the park. One of the regulars there whom I chat occasionally with asked me (after finding out that I'm still single), if I would be concerned about not having any descendants. I find that question very interesting, because the first thing that popped into my mind was: "why should it be?" 

Don't I want to get married and have children to carry on my family name? That seems to be a very reasonable thing to do as a biological creature with a driving urge to procreate. Our genes, are selfish and want to preserve themselves, at our expense. We die, but our genes continue on. That is the whole game of evolution. 

But I did not choose the genes that I currently carry in my body. Where was I before I was born? If it didn't bother me then, why should it bother me when I'm gone? And who and where is this 'I', before and after I'm gone?

Let's say, there's an immortal soul that lives in heaven after one has done one's time on Earth. Does this soul sit in front of a cosmic TV and watch if his descendants are doing justice to his name? Why do we care about our legacy after death? And what makes us think that our post-death souls would be interested in such things?

Is the soul simply our software code and memory state transferred to run on a different substrate after death? What makes souls think that each and every one of them are unique and worth preserving? What defines your uniqueness? Is it your personality--your likes and dislikes, values and attitude towards life and other people, including your many faults and foibles? Is each one of us a unique node in the universe?

If it is, and the project of this cosmic life is simply self-preservation, is procreation a part of the soul's purpose and project? But what about its spiritual goal to reunite with God? The Multiplicity finally merging back into Unity? What happens to your uniqueness then, when you are finally one with God? Will you still be you with your ego and bad attitude, smirking and basking in the final glory of your success?

Those are all very interesting questions and each one of us, I think, tries our best to grapple with the mystery of our existence. Our instinct prompts us to self-preserve and procreate. But if this is the only purpose of our existence, what is considered a 'successful' existence?  Is a man who fathers many children to carry on his genes, a 'successful' individual? 

Surrounded by all these questions, we try to define a purpose for our existence. Some try to make a mark in the world by accumulating as much wealth as possible and perhaps in the process help as many people as possible too, while others dedicate their lives to piety, to find God. They are all noble goals. No one can fault you, if you choose one or any combination of them. Who has the authority to judge you, when everyone is in the same existential boat?

Go, be the human animal that you are. Be fruitful and multiply! And. be the spiritual being, which you think your true self is, existing even after death. Accumulate as much merits as you can, so that you qualify for whatever rewards that the Supreme Being has in store for you, as He (or perhaps his prophets?) has defined it. 

Do whatever you think is right. I think we'll all be alright. We'll all die for sure. And who knows, maybe we'll get a chance to revisit this subject again and compare notes? I'll live for that!

Pain, Par for the Course

I have some time alone today and I am happy to have an hour or two of quiet reflection. There's only another month left to the year. Even though it is raining everyday, this is the best time of the year for me. And I plan to enjoy every moment of it.

How do I enjoy life? What is enjoyment for me? A day that passes peacefully with nothing extraordinary happening is already a great joy for me. My bar for happiness is set very very low, which is why I'm rarely unhappy.

There were moments in my life over the past decade when I did have to face some difficult times but I took them all in my stride and I was grateful that I learned something valuable from those experiences. To be able to sleep well every night is a great blessing and to wake up every morning alive and kicking is already something worth celebrating. Now you see how low my happiness bar is set.

Can money buy happiness? Yes, but it also buys you an equivalent amount of pain. If you want the kind of happiness that money buys, then be strong and wise enough to tackle the pain that comes with it. When you have the capability to accept pain, pain is just pain. You take it on the chin and it ends there. If pain is suffered consciously, in the very moment itselfr, there's no hidden costs or compounding interest to be paid in the form of chronic mental stress.  

Some people see work as stress and recoil from it. But remember, that's also why you get paid for doing the job. Your job exists because there are problems that need to be solved for the business to function. If you want the happiness that a fat salary buys, be happy too to take the stress that comes along with it. 

With experience and wisdom, you will develop the strength to handle different challenges in an optimal fashion. You'll understand why certain things are painful and then you'll learn how not to take the blows, without injuring yourself.

I've written in another blog article how as long as we are in tune with the carrier wave of life, we will never be carried away by peak ecstatic experiences nor be devastated by any misfortune in life. The oscillations of life should not break the fabric of your existence. You are existence-consciousness-bliss -- that's the triple attribute of your true nature, the ultimate state of perfection, untainted by ego and illusion.

All that wanting, desiring and posturing that you exhibit in your mortal life, one day, you'll see how insignificant and petty they are. But at the moment, they don't appear so to you. Your career and your standing in society seem like non-negotiable pre-conditions for happiness. So embrace them with wisdom and maturity. There will be pain. But it's alright. For pain is par for the course.