An Interesting Life

I have my coffee and a good seat in a quiet corner of the cafe and now I'm ready to expound my thoughts for the week. It's election season again and on November 19th, we'll all decide who's going to be our government for the next five years.

Politics as they are being fought over social media nowadays is kind of boring. It's all partisanship hatred of the other side and rumour-mongering. People like to view the world as either black or white. Your side is always right and the others bad, corrupt and incompetent.

The fact of the matter is, most people hardly know what our politicians are like in real life. In all likelihood when you meet them, they are like any other person you know, with strengths and weaknesses. We like to judge people by how the look, talk and behave and whether we could get along with them. We would like people whom, we think we can connect with and share some commonalities,

Many people are driven by an egoistic need to criticise public figures. Making fun of our bungling politicians make us feel superior. So we share memes and conspiracy theories over social media to get laughs and score points. Facts are often exaggerated, half-truths are taken as gospel. It's fun to laugh together with friends whom we assume are in the same team.

It is difficult for us to live in a world which do not have clear heroes and villains. But in real-life, everyone is a shade of grey. Unfortunately recognising the subtleties of these shades makes it difficult to make binary decisions. We have to decide fast in life: yes or no, good or bad. When everything is clearly categorised as such, life becomes simple and efficient. We act with certainty.

But we lose nuance. 

To me, nuances are the stuff of life. Art is basically an attempt to convey nuances. We see a shade of a particular colour: is it purple? burgundy? magenta or perhaps maroon? It is what it is. Labelling it as something is what the mind wants us to do so that they can be neatly categorised for further decision-making. But why not just see things as they are, without labels or conclusions? They are simply...interesting.

Some politician said something 'stupid'. Interesting. This miracle drug is going to be the next big thing. Interesting. There is no future anymore in Malaysia. Very interesting. It's fun to listen and observe everything with interest. An interested mind is always seeking for more context and continuity so that an even larger picture can be formed.

Everything is dynamic and evolving. By treating every observation as 'interesting', we understand that it is a snapshot of something in motion. I'll put it as another jigsaw piece in my mind and I'll stand back to take a look at the larger picture that's forming. Interesting. 

Look at the sea. Some waves are are rising, some subsiding; turbulence is forming here and there they are breaking out into sprays. Everything is fluid, like life. Everyone's personality lies in some continuum; so do not make binary judgement. Instead of judging someone as good or bad, why not say "interesting"?

When you have an interested mind that sees the world as interesting, everything bears interest--like money in your savings account. You are filled with the capacity and eagerness to know more and to get a better picture. No picture is ever final--you are for the continuous growth of knowledge. 

So do not be quick to judge. Just absorb everything and whisper to yourself: interesting. Life is much more interesting that way, don't you think?