Meditations on Mortality

We are approaching the year's end and this my last blog article for 2023. I've been on leave for the past few days but I've also been spending time on work, diving deeper into an issue which I never had time to focus on. 

Yesterday, I visited a friend who was admitted to the IJN due to an unexpected heart attack. The news came as a shock to all of us. But I was happy that his situation has stabilised, even though he has to undergo an heart bypass surgery next week. My heart is with him as he navigates this hurdle, at this mature stage of his middle-aged life.

This incident made us all reflect on our mortality. I have done so before in past blog posts: Musings on Mortality and Walking Each Other Home, among others. During the Covid-19 pandemic, I lost two good friends unexpectedly to the disease. David recommended many good books to me and I still have a few of his in my possession (unlike me, who is a book hoarder, he loved giving away his books after reading them). Hengky, was a man of faith and I greatly admired his sincere devotion to his religion. 

Over the past few years, I also got to know that two of my childhood friends have passed on. I played soccer with Fauzi in my primary schooldays, and See Leng was a neighbourhood friend whom I had spent many beautiful days together playing all the games that kids used to play--marbles, kites, tops, yo-yo, skip-ropes, cards, carrom, ping-pong and Monopoly.

The fact that their memories live on in me is a testament to the fact that we all continue to live on and that life is not limited to our short biological existence. Forgive me for lapsing into New Age-speak: we are information and energy.  And once injected into the system, we would have changed, in our small way, the state of the universe. 

Every wave in the ocean affects and is affected by other waves, because we are part of this body of water. We must broaden our perspective on life so that we encompass the ocean, and not limited to that tiny wavelet which rises momentary, only to sink back into oblivion.

Each of us is a unique waveform, built from the superposition of many different harmonics. Every soul that we've come into contact with has injected their frequencies into our spectra. When we've radiated out all our energies, like the sun, we die. 

But our thoughts, ideas and deeds live on in the minds and bodies of the living. Every sentence that you read here, hopefully lodges in your mind and influences every word and action of yours. I live now in you, whether you like it or not.

All religions believe in an ultimate reality that exists beyond death.  We might argue over conceptual ideas like the existence and nature of the soul or whether there's a heaven or reincarnation but we cannot deny that, at this moment we are all conscious. I am conscious, therefore I am. But what is consciousness? Is it just the emergent property of any complex biological system? Or is it some kind of magic sauce that needs to be added to it?

Maybe consciousness is all there is and whatever we experience is just a manifestation or reflection of it. This is Advaita Vedanta at its purest. Waves have no separate existence apart from water. All forms are ultimately 'empty', as the Buddhist would say. We need to rise above the mundane experience of the ego and self, tied to the material body. 

At the close of another year, we meditate on the mortality of our human existence, so that we reinforce our deep-held intuition that we are beyond this illusory world of matter. And it is hoped that with each passing year, this veil of ignorance is removed, if ever so slightly, so that we may ultimately rest in our 'true nature'--whatever that is. 

In Praise of Idolatry

As we approach the Christmas weekend, I want to write something about God and its worship. I often use God metaphorically, when referring to the Ultimate Reality, the Truth or something like the Hindu's Brahman. I admit that I am more comfortable using more New Age-y terms like Eckhart Tolle's 'Now' or 'Presence' to express the spirituality within.

But today let me address the subject of the worship of a personal God--a ruler God who is also the creator of the universe and the judge of all our actions. Is that a naive belief? Am I against it?

As usual, when it comes to questions like these, the answer is always: yes and no. There's nothing unusual about the worship of a personal deity. You will be surprised that I'd even go so far to say that there's even nothing wrong with the worship of idols. 

The advanced spiritual seeker always look askance at those who are mired in ritualistic worship of various gods or deities. But the Bhagavad Gita has the clearest explanation on why the worship of the personal god is a legitimate and even the highest form of spiritual practice. In chapter 12, Lord Krishna explains to Arjuna that it is a more natural path compared to more 'advanced' ones like Jnana or Raja Yoga, which are more abstract.

To worship a personal god in the form of a deity in human form is a lot easier than to meditate on some abstract concept called Brahman or Emptiness or a formless God that reveals its essence through Nature, like Spinoza's God. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity - The Father, the Son and the Spirit is an attempt to capture all these different aspects of God in one.

We all know what it is like to love someone, even though mortal love is tinged with selfishness. But that is a good starting point. We love our partner, spouse, parents and children. The human mind has a natural ability to grasp objects that has a human face and form. To extend our natural ability to love another human being towards devotion to a supernatural one is simply applying a natural mental tool (or to use Daniel Dennett's term, an  'intuition pump') to grasp something higher. 

Our minds need an object to focus on. Every time we open our mouths, we immediately introduce a subject and an object. We cannot easily escape this dualistic conception of the world. Why fight it then? Start with an objective human God. When you express intense love towards someone, you'd see the object of your love, as a part of yourself. You break the subject-object duality through love. And that is the starting point of all spirituality.

When a kid first learns to ride a bike, he uses one with 2 additional training wheels attached to it. It helps him learn balance and after a while, those extra wheels can be removed and suddenly he is riding naturally with only two. The worship of a personal deity is exactly the same thing. 

We pour our love and devotion to the personal god in the form of an idol, which possesses all the good human qualities that we can identify with. That trains the heart to be selfless. After a while, that selfless love emanates naturally. Hold that deep devotional feeling and simply remove the idol. And voila!: You have a formless God.

But even an abstract, formless, all-powerful, all-merciful, one creator God is still an object. Call it what you will (read Whatchamacallit). Is this superior compared to worshipping a physical idol? Again yes and no. The idolator's pitfall is that he or she could be hung up on the minutiae of ritualistic worship and subscribe all sorts of superstitious beliefs that is attributed to a physical object. This hampers his spiritual development. 

The formless God worshiper, on the other hand, is susceptible to intellectual arrogance. Every little piece of philosophical doctrine is taken literally as some kind of legalistic truth that needs to be strictly adhered to. They argue endlessly over concepts that in themselves are nothing more than mental models of Truth. They fail to understand that an abstract God is still another intuition pump.

Ironically, the solution to spiritual arrogance is a humble dose of idol worship. Prostate yourself before the image of a human deity. Surrender yourself as a servant would to a master. That is the way to thaw that ego that has formed through your misguided sense of superiority. Then you would know that it's the combination of the heart and the mind that's the key to spiritual progress. 

Karma, Bhakti, Jnana and Raja Yoga--these are the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual paths towards enlightenment. Neither one is superior to the rest. Pursue all of them, and over time you will understand how they complement each other.

So, let's not look down on the idol-worshipper. Know that the human mind is naturally anthropomorphic. The simple ritual of clasped-hand prayer to a Saviour Lord, an offering of incense and flowers to a statue of the Goddess of Mercy or a prostration in front of a stone statue of Ganesha are all powerful exercises that strengthen one's spiritual muscles. Like any other human endeavour, perfection comes after repeated practice.

The Cosmic Compass

As always, before I begin writing my blog article of the week, I reread the previous week's one, checking for typos, missing words, the inevitable grammar mistakes and occasionally weeding out clumsy sentences. Most of the time, I end up with the feeling that what I wrote wasn't that bad after all.

I think most writers are the harshest critics of their own work. That critic is hard at work even now, while I'm typing these sentences ("you are rambling again". "Get to the point". "Make your sentences shorter". "That's another cliche!").  Often you end up feeling that you've produced something of questionable quality. But I've learned not to care. Having written something is better than not haven't done so. A blog article published is another hour of life well-lived.

To truly judge your own work, you have to let these critical voices fade away and then reread it again, as if you are reading it for the first time. Often, upon I rereading my previous week's work, I end up with a more sympathetic opinion.

One must learn to forgive oneself, to be able to forgive others. I see forgiveness as a way of clearing our own mental and emotional blockages. So much energy is trapped and wasted when we hold unhealthy grudges, disappointments or hatreds. Self-love is the beginning of agape.

Because I am another year older today, I also would like to review the past year of my life with understanding and compassion. All the ups and downs of life are but stress tests that expose our weaknesses. One should look at them with equanimity--like a scientist looking at data from his experiments. There are no failures in scientific experiments. Data that disproves your hypothesis are as welcome as those that support it. That's how I approach life.

When you experience the highs of success--critical acclaim, fame, a promotion, an award or any form of recognition, enjoy it. Allow yourself to bathe in the warmth of success. But never be attached to it. Any worldly acclaim should just roll off the surface of the soul, like water on a lotus leaf.

When one understands the limits of science and the human intellect, one grasps the immateriality of the world and sees that the world is but an illusory manifestation. All our physics only seeks to find better and better models of the universe and the models we create are but constructions of our limited minds. We rely on our intuitions to come up with new theories, which can then be verified by experiments. We think we live in space and time but that is just the best model of reality we have now. It may not be the most fundamental aspect of nature. 

Our spiritual impulses are constantly pulling us back towards the direction of Truth. But truth can only be approximated by human understanding. All the truths of the universe are already inside us, because we are a part of it. We just have to unveil the covering of our imperfects minds to reveal them. Learning is a process of adjusting the impedance of the mind, so that Truth radiates out in its full glory.

The mind is a manifestation of consciousness. That's a very Advaita Vedantic thing to say. But it is how I feel within. Wisdom, and if I'm allowed to use the over-abused word, Enlightenment, arises when we've made our minds clear and translucent, like the undisturbed surface of a pond, that is, when Patanjali's citta vrittis are quelled.

The worldly man thinks heaven as material pleasure-dome par excellence. The spiritual man knows that perfection is beyond any conceptual grasp and therefore seeks not to enmesh himself in materiality. Whether one is a monist, dualist or pluralists, we must understand that Nature is beyond words and concepts. All our word-play only serves as an imperfect compass, hinting towards the direction of true north.

With this cosmic compass we have within, we shall trudge ahead courageously, confident that we shall never venture too far off-course. And that's good enough. 

The Whatchamacallit

My pot of Earl Grey is settled on my table, being warmed by a glowing tea-light; I'm seated comfortably here in my apartment study, listening to some Nocturnes from Chopin playing in the background and I'm now ready to tackle my blog article of the week.

As we all cruise towards year-end, there's a more relaxed feeling in the air. Everyone is clearing their annual leave and I'm also doing the same, at most 2 days at time for I dislike long breaks from work. I like my current rhythm of work and play, juxtaposing 'dull' IT work with my other pursuits--art, literature, philosophy, spirituality, music and science.

Weekends are reserved for reading, writing and appreciating the finer things in life. When I look at my collection of books, it feels like I've already gathered enough provisions to last me through all the remaining winters of my life.  

And because I have so many areas of interests, knowing that time is finite, I try to stack my activities so that I can kill two, even three birds with one stone. To pursue my interest in writing and to indulge in my fountain pen hobby, I journal daily using one, while listening to some good music on Spotify. I focus on the works of a single composer every week. This week I'm getting acquainted with the piano music of Scriabin and I'm loving it so much.

Of course, listening to audiobooks is another good way of 'reading' while doing something else that does not require any mental effort. I do this every weekend on my walk and jog at the park. I've been working through a book by Douglas Murray over the past couple of weeks. While driving here just now, I was listening to lectures on the History of the Catholic Church from the Great Courses series. 

Even though most of my favourite activities are solitary, I also enjoy socialising with my friends. I try to catch up with them whenever I can. Which reminds me that I have a dinner with some of my university mates this Sunday and look forward very much to it.  

People are interesting because you can learn so much from someone's experience.  It is a good source of knowledge. Each one of us is a unique experiment. We find ourselves born with specific 'boundary conditions'. And that defines and limits the possible solutions to the equation of life.

The sky is getting darker and I'm certain that the heavens will be emptying out its contents soon with lightning and thunder as it does almost every other day this time of the year. It's actually my favourite time of the year--good for reflecting on the year that's ending and to plan for the coming one. The piston of time drives us forward relentlessly and we just have to ride along its forward momentum, putting its power to good use.

It doesn't look like I will dive into any deep topic today and I'm just happy to ramble on about anything that comes to my mind, and marvel at the miracle of writing itself.  I can see the vertical streaks of rain outside my window as I type this, enveloping me within a curtain of solitary comfort. Nature goes about its job, fulfilling the karmic life of water as it reincarnates as raindrops onto earth, to restart its long journey back to the heavens.

I'm no different from these water droplets, surging up the roots of trees and leaping off leaves, lifted up by the sun into the clouds. I'm reminded again by those magnificent lines from Dylan Thomas which had enthralled me in my youth: 

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees

Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose

My youth is bent by the same wintry fever

When we see ourselves as part of nature, there's a certain transcendence that gives meaning to our existence, whatever meaning is. We partake in this cosmic dance that at once makes us both creator and creation, played against a larger canvas where the whole can only be comprehended by dissolving into its parts.

Philosophers over the ages have tried to articulate this mystery of existence and even the most inspired ones can only hint at. And as I write these sentences, I'm simply doing what I'm supposed to do, as dictated by the greater impulse of nature. 

And if you do chance upon these lines, maybe we could all marvel together at the beauty of it all. You and I connect now, and in that moment of contact, we catch a glimpse of the Infinite, the One, the Cosmic Mind, Brahman, Atman, Ishvara, God or Whatchamacallit. It doesn't matter.

The Garden Path of Language

Time to write! I've been late in posting my blog article this week because I had a social function yesterday--Saturday, my usual day for blogging. I came back rather late and was too tired to write. But it was great to be able to catch up with some old friends again. We are all trying to find meaning in our lives in some way and each chooses a path based on circumstance and fate.

Why are some of us Christians and others Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists or Muslims? Is one religion superior to another? In my case, I love all of the above and I try to be a student of them all. I've made my music-religion analogy many times in previous articles before. I appreciate many types of music and listening to many enriches my life considerably. But I will call out someone who thinks only his or her music is the only true one.

Why some of us prefer a particular music to another is akin to why we choose one religion over another. If you are Chinese and grew up in an environment where you're exposed to more Chinese music, that will inevitably influence your choice of music. Similarly with religion. 

And then each one of us has our own individual tastes. Religious text is like poetry. We respond to language differently, depending on our personality. Some prefers the language of love, others the dry but more precise language of logic. Which is why the Bhagavad Gita outlines the many paths towards enlightenment: karma yoga (action), bhakti yoga (devotion), jnana yoga (intellectual) and the raja yoga (spiritual) paths. 

I love all of them. But I also understand the pitfalls of each, if one were to think that any one of them is the only exclusive path. Often any religion is a mixture of all four. You would have a system of ethics that give you guidance over day to day action or conduct; some prayer and rituals which help to cultivate a devotional heart, some doctrinal philosophy to satisfy your intellectual doubts and curiosity and some mystical or contemplative practices such as meditation or silent retreats to awaken the divine spirit within.

To pursue any religious path, one must also understand the limitations of language. Again my music analogy comes in handy: the beauty of music is directly experienced. Any attempts to 'explain' why a particular piece of music is beautiful ultimately falls short. Religious texts seek to inspire rather than inform. All words are pointers to the truth. Not understanding this fact, leads to fanaticism.

"The Tao that can be spoken of is not the Tao". The first line of Lao Tze's Tao Te Ching basically lays done this basic truth about the limitation of language in expressing ultimate reality. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God". The first verse of the Gospel of John also alludes to this. "Word" here is translated from the Greek "logos", which also means "reason". The moment any ultimate truth is articulated in language, it is already a model, an imprecise pointer, a map and not the actual terrain itself. 

Emptiness is form, form is emptiness as the Mahayana Buddhists would tell you. Is the concept of emptiness a form of nihilism? No. It may appear so because, again we have to express things in language and language is also a kind of form that attempts to represent a truth. Which is why Buddhist philosophers like Nagarjuna uses the language of negation to express what's actually there.

In Nagarjuna's Madyamaka school of Buddhist philosophy, the tetralemma involved in every proposition is denied. Let's say someone asserts that 1. there is a self.  The answer is no. If so, then can one conclude with lemma 2: There is no self? The answer is also no! Then, what about 3:  there is both self and no self. No again!  And finally, in exasperation, we say: there is neither self nor no self. Nagarjuna says no, that is also not true!. What's left of all these negations is the best approximation of the truth, which is the essence of Nagarjuna's Middle-Way. 

Zen masters also tries to dislodge their students from the grip of conceptual language thinking using koans. Truth can only be realised by transcending language. At the meantime, we will still talk, write and reason as much as we can, so that we get a glimpse of the Truth. But don't get too hung up on them.  The large language models, LLMs, derived their intelligence from language itself. We know how that sometimes lead to hallucinations. But even hallucinations can be useful pointers to the truth as they reveal the nature of the model itself.

The world we experience is maya or virtual. But it is also our instrument for inferring the truth. Our sciences, built using the precise language of mathematics have been able to penetrate the secrets of nature beyond our wildest dreams, and continue to do so. The scientists know the limitation of their mathematical models and are constantly on a lookout of better ones.

Beautiful though the existing paths are, we must not be seduced by them. If we are not vigilante, language, concepts and religious doctrines could lead us down that garden path.

Embracing Beauty

This is a week for socialising! I've chosen to go on leave starting today, which is Thanksgiving Day in US, and usually a quiet day at work. I have many social activities lined up for today, tomorrow and Saturday. 

I'll be catching up with my old Indonesian colleague W. later who is on a business trip to KL. We used to go out together a lot to Kota, Jakarta's bustling Chinatown during those good old days. The challenge for many of us these days is finding time and inclination to meet up with friends. Everyone has family responsibilities and these usually take priority. But it's important to meet up with old friends every now and then as it gives us a chance to rediscover who we are and how far we've come.

I'm not the type who would harbour regrets in life for I do not think we'll ever know which path we took would have turned out best. In life, we do not get to conduct control experiments: like "let's take path A and then path B with exactly the same starting conditions and see how they both unfold". If we had chosen path B and some bad outcome happened, how would we know that path A wouldn't have been worst?

Life is a complex system. Small changes now could lead to unexpected outcomes further down the road. We are all interconnected in a nexus of forces that play out unpredictably. We can only judge every moment based on immediately available fact, some which we are conscious of, many which we aren't. Many scientists and philosophers would even say that whichever choice we make, we have no control over the matter. There is no free will.

So my philosophy is to embrace the totality of every moment. There's no good or bad experience, but I know every experience contributes to my learning. My goal is to continuously train my NI (natural, as opposed to artificial intelligence or AI) model so that it performs better and better over time.

Emotions come from the bio-chemical reactions in the body.  Drugs can easily induce a feeling of wellbeing, happiness and love. If we have the right NI model, such states can also arise easily. Sometimes, a negative feedback loop of information can drive a model towards a state akin to depression. It's all up to us. What kind of information do we choose to consume and how do we consume them wisely, given our knowledge of the human body and mind?

There are many recommended paths laid out for us. Religion is the most prominent one. It is the easiest course to follow because its contents are rich and layered enough to provide something for everyone. It can satisfy the ritualistically inclined masses and the high-brow mystics and philosophers. 

When we follow a well-travelled path like religion, we feel secure and reassured. Finally, you have a map that lays out a path ahead for you and you are confident that it is the right one because so many have travelled the path before. Every fibre in your body also says so, because its religious tenets have awakened something in you. You have become a believer and how utterly sure you are that whatever you feel so right in your bones is the ultimate truth!

I love Jazz. But I also love baroque, classical, keroncong and popular rock music.  Do I think there's only one school of music that's the true music? Most certainly not! One deprives oneself of many beautiful aural experiences in life, if one were to be dogmatic about music. Similarly with religion.

I always think it is stupid to argue over which religion is the true one. Religious supremacists are ignorant of the beauty and vastness of human spirituality. Neither do I think that all institutionalised religions are the same. There's good music and so-so music. But the impulse to make music is a universal one. And that's what interests me most. Where does it come from? Is it a spandrel of evolution?

Purist Jazz lovers will think Fusion Jazz is bad. They are like religious fundamentalists. To me the evolution of religious beliefs is inevitable. It is like language. Teach English to a remote tribe and they will naturally develop their own slang and pidgin version of the language, spoken in their unique accent. Music, language and religion--they are all socio-cultural artifacts, the products of being human. 

Every time I listen to Bach, I would ask myself: isn't this the most beautiful music in the world? It feels like an awakening, like falling in love. It would be a problem if I were to stop there and just listen to Bach all my life, thinking that it is the ultimate music. There are different types of music out there that are beautiful in different ways. 

Life, put simply, is a process of embracing all the beauty that's out there in the world. Let's not be naively enthralled with just a single manifestation of it. The act of embracing is what makes life beautiful. 

Hope and Hallucinations

What a challenging week it has been! There was a very difficult technical problem which I inherited but I was relieved that I managed to find a solution for it. I've always practiced gratitude in everything I do, and I am grateful this time that I did not run out of ideas to pursue. By getting the ego out of the way, ideas will always flow. That I must always remember.

Today is my chance to catch my breath a little and relax with some quiet written words. I see a lot of people getting all worked up by news and events that are happening in the world. I see everything with a bit a equanimity, listening to both sides of the story. I do not have any desire to indulge in virtue signalling. Having built a thriving social media service before, I have no desire to dwell in that world anymore. 

I'm still that old-fashioned bloke typing text into an outdated blogging platform, something I've been doing for 20 over years now. This blog is a record of my intellectual development over the last two decades. When I first started blogging in Jakarta, I did it mostly from an Internet cafe which I frequent on a daily basis because the only other alternative was using a slow modem dialup from my hotel room, which I did occasionally.

What happy days those were, living alone in the heart of Jakarta, within walking distance of good street food along Jalan Sabang, a good bookstore, the now defunct QBWorld, and a grand cinema, Theatre Jakarta.  Food, books and movies are what I live on. Can't think of anything more in life that I need!

I am grateful for what I have and had. I treat every experience in life as an opportunity to learn, as another set of data to improve my natural intelligence model. We learn the same way as those AI LLMs that are changing every aspect of our lives. People say that these LLMs are still imperfect because they have a tendency to hallucinate. But they forget, people also hallucinate all the time!  How many times have we encountered people who speak with false certainty about subjects that they have scant knowledge of? Isn't our susceptibility to conspiracy theories a form of hallucination too?

At least ChatGPT has the decency to apologise and correct itself whenever you point out its errors. How many times have you seen people doing that? If only everyone has the same balanced and measured response on every subject that ChatGPT has, the world would be a much better place!

The only difference between my brain and these LLMs now is that, mine lives in a body that moves around in the world, constantly absorbing new data and input. Whenever someone talks to me, I do not only receive word prompts, I also get visual, auditory, tactile and chemical ones. Even with these advantages,  I still cannot come up with better answers than ChatGPT. And I am often wrong too. So let's have the humility to accept that we too 'hallucinate'.

It is important that we feed our brains with good quality information, like how we try to consume nutritious food for health. Today, we are lucky that quality content is cheaply available everywhere. It is up to us to feed ourselves wisely and improve our own natural intelligence models. ChatGPT and other LLMs will be continuously improving over time. AI models are the ingenious products of human intelligence, which ends up augmenting our own in return. 

Our future depends on how well we assimilate new technologies into our lives, for the betterment of humankind. And key to that is the ability to break out of bad thinking habits, superstitious dogmas and our primal tendencies towards violence, territoriality and sexual dominance. Yes, there's still hope for the world if only we humans know how to break out of our mass hallucinations.

The Engine of Joy

I am a creature of habits and I love my daily routines. We all know that habit stacking is a useful way to build a new habit. Everyone has many daily tasks that are already ingrained: things like brushing one's teeth, toilet and bathing. Why not use them like pegs to hang on fresh new habits?

To build a new habit, you just tag an additional task to an existing one so that the incremental effort of performing it just gets carried along easily by the existing routine. Daily, weekly and monthly routines are like the piston movements of a four-stroke engine. Once the engine is started, you have that regular supply of energy to power anything. Why not a new habit? As long as you align them along the momentum of your existing actions, it will move forward.

So I meditate before I brush my teeth, read while I'm in the toilet and listen to the day's news in the shower.  I journal and listen to some classical music or jazz just before showering again at the end of the day. In bed, I read a poem before succumbing to sleep. I find poetry very relaxing as it is like music--there is no plot or information that the writer is attempting to convey, only an experience. Words are used in novel ways, triggering new associations of ideas and images in the mind. There's nothing to figure out--only the beauty of words in themselves. It's the perfect bedtime balm.

This is my daily cycle of tasks. And then there's a weekly one too. Blogging comes at the end of the week, as a kind of reflective and creative exercise, helping to assimilate my thoughts and integrate everything I've learned over the week. I write so many emails daily, spouting cliche phrases most of the time that being able to blog at the end of a hectic work-week on any topic of my interest, feels extremely liberating. Here I get to expound on anything that strikes my fancy. And I'm comforted by the fact that no one is reading this. 

I have other weekly habits. Exercise is one of them. Tagging on to it is my opportunity to listen to my audiobook while I'm doing that. Habits that kill two birds with one stone are the best. One can stack habit upon habit until one's live becomes a rich, productive and healthy one, automatically. 

Dread your Monday blues? Make it interesting by turning it into a meatless one. I've practiced being a weekly vegetarian for more than a decade now. Meatless Mondays save me the trouble of figuring out what and where to eat. It's something I look forward to on the day of the week, because I get to eat something different and it feels like a clean and healthy diet reset.

Time is the fuel that powers our habit engine and propels our life forward. We just have to design an architecture around it that taps onto this powerful source of energy.  Do not waste time lamenting how time flies. Open up your sails and let its winds drive you forward. The result is a self-running engine that produces joy. 

Confessions of a Book Junkie

Today, I'm comfortably seated at the O'Brien's Cafe, having a nice pot of hot Earl Grey while munching my tropical salad. It has been a full 5-day week for me as I did not take any leave. Next coming 3 weeks, I'll take my Fridays off as I have a lot of leave to clear before year-end.

I've been doing a lot of reading, despite my heavy work schedule. I treat my readings as meals, making sure that I have a healthy diet of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. I cannot imagine a life without books and looking back, reading has been the enduring constant in my life.

I am lucky to have grown up in a household filled with a reasonable amount of books. I know my father was fond of books, even though he did not spend that much time reading them, preferring the accessibility of the daily newspapers. 

Like most kids during my time, I was recommended by the elders to read children's adventure stories by Enid Blyton, but unfortunately I was never fond of them. I found them too mild for my taste: preppy British schoolkids holidaying in a castle and stumbling onto some kind of mystery, was a big yawn to me. My taste was slightly more 'mature'--I preferred adult stories of spies and espionage, even though I was actually too young to really understand the Cold War and the political background of these tales.

I was a huge fan of James Bond and watched every single one of Connery's and Moore's depiction of the character in the cinema. At the age of 11, I read my first James Bond novel--The Man With the Golden Gun. It was anthologised in one of those delightful hardcover Reader's Digest Condensed Books series that were immensely popular then. My dad had a subscription for it, and kept them under lock and key inside a glass showcase, and all I could do was gawk at this splendid display of volumes. 

I would spend my days just reading the intriguing titles I could see on the spine of these books. Titles like Fate is the Hunter, All Men Are Lonely Now, The Days Were too Short, Airport, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, To Kill A Mockingbird, I Take This Land, Mistress of Mellyn, Naked Came I, and many other titles of bestsellers masterfully condensed by the good folks at Reader's Digest. 

There were like 5 condensed novels in each of these hardcover volumes and each story contained wonderful illustrations by a different artists--a main one for the title page and interspersed within the text, illustrations of key scenes in the story.  Later when I was allowed access to these books, I would spend hours poring through every illustration. To me the art themselves were worth the price of the book. I was thrilled and inspired to see the many different styles of different artists, ranging from pen sketches to impressionistic and photorealistic ones, done using various mediums. I learned so much about art from these illustrations themselves.

I remember Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy--a fictional biography of Michelangelo as being very inspiring to me. I even devoured The FBI Story, a non-fictional story about the founding and history of the FBI. With my then limited vocabulary and understanding of world affairs, I barely comprehended its content but I took pride in being able to hold a thick hardcover book in my hand like and being able to pore through every single word and sentence which the author wrote. My lack of comprehension did not deter me. What's important was that I was bona fide book reader!

As I grew into my teenage years, I went through an Alistair MacLean phase, where I devoured most of his published fiction. Many of his titles were adapted into blockbuster movies, notably The Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare. My favourites were the lesser known ones like Night Without End and The Satan Bug which was published under his pseudonym, Ian Stuart. 

When I progressed to my upper secondary school, I started devouring more non-fiction and even serious works of literature. I imagined myself Pip in Dicken's Great Expectations and later in the year 1984, I read George Orwell's book of the same title, which he wrote in 1948, about a dystopian vision of the world 36 years' in the future. 

Later, a series of influential popular books on science, religion and philosophy set me off then on a path which determined most of my reading diet for my adult years: The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan, The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra, The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig.

Other memorable milestones of reading during my early years of adulthood include Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera and A History of God by Karen Armstrong.  And that was just the beginning of my reading journey. I have amassed a huge amount of books which I've yet to read, but hopefully I am able to tackle them within my lifetime. 

What an inexhaustible source of pleasure reading is! I do not really read to better myself, even though, I'm certain that all my years of reading had made me more aware of my many flaws. Instead I indulge in it unashamedly, purely as a hedonistic act. I certainly make no apologies for it. It is my drug of choice. And I'm comforted by the fact that, with some amount of confidence, that my supply of books will never ever run out. 

The Experience of Existence

I've been thinking a lot about the mind, as usual.  But who is it that's doing the thinking? Isn't it the mind itself? Isn't this a hopelessly recursive process, like trying to capture the image of a mirror with another mirror, only to see an infinite regress of reflections?

That is why the so-called "hard problem of consciousness" is so difficult to solve. We can figure out the easy part--mapping the functions of consciousness to its physical processes, which is what neuroscientists have been doing diligently. But the hard problem of consciousness is trying to understand the subjective experience of the mind. What is it like to be a bat or to be you? Why should I trust you when you say that you are conscious? I can never experience what you experience now, reading these words. 

I myself am claiming that I am conscious, because I have the illusion of agency and an experience of selfhood who is the initiator and writer of these sentences. The motor movement of my fingers stem from an intent from my conscious mind, or does it?

Do I even have a choice as to what I'll be typing? Words emerge out of the void and are being manifested here on this blog. What makes anyone think that it's a conscious choice of my mind? I don't have control over what thought would come over me next. I could decide to take a bathroom break or take another sip of my Earl Grey. Who decides that? Me?

Maybe not. Maybe free will is an illusion, like what many philosophers and scientists say. I'm alright with that. I would like to imagine myself to be a river, just flowing along, obeying the laws of physics. All spiritual traditions advocate some form of living akin to this. It's living in the Now, as Eckhart Tolle would put it, or doing God's Will, as the monotheists would prefer to see it.

The terrorist on a suicide bombing mission would also claim that he is doing God's Will. How different is that from the hippie meditator who claims to commune with the divine on a psychedelic trip? Are not both attempting to tap into the natural flow of the universe, which we claim has its innate wisdom?

I guess, the essential attitude to have in pursuing any religion or spiritual practice is to have a sense of humility. Never latch on to certainty. The religious extremist on a suicide mission has a fixed ideology in his mind: that life transcends this mortal body and there's a hereafter where the real reward awaits. Well, that could be true as no one has gone there and come back to tell the tale. 

I don't give too much credence to near-death experiences about seeing angelic beings or bright lights at the end of the tunnel. So what? We see all sorts of magical worlds on an LSD trip. Is that real, or is it just the mind trying to interpret particular patterns of firing in our neurons? We will always see faces or creatures in the shapes of clouds or in the configuration of stars in the night sky. The mind is a pattern recognition system, honed by evolution. We can't see the world any other way.

Well, for all we know, life might extend beyond the horizon of this material existence. That'll be great. But I suspect, the 'you' that inhabits this body, will not see it in the same limited way that you see your world now. Heaven will not be you having wine and caviar in an opulent palace. Thinking about pleasure as simply that is just a reflection of our lack of imagination. Imagination itself is what we could construct with building blocks and patterns that our mind already knows--the pleasures of food, sex and kinship with other beings. Pleasure is just another series of neural-chemical processes happening in the brain and body. 

Whenever I browse a website, I would imagine HTTP requests being sent out and HTML code code being returned with status 200. To the browser, that is 'pleasure'.  A need is satiated. But HTTP requests and responses are abstractions of the application layer of the TCPIP stack. There is no such thing as a request or response, only data packets with bits and bytes being shuffled around by routers. 

Even packets is another layer of abstraction. They are real only if you are an entity living in layer 3 of the stack. And ultimately, it's just energy pulses being transmitted across space through photons or electrons, which again are also abstractions, called 'particles'. Our minds are only capable of thinking about objects that we have seen or touch--billiard balls, sand and waves in the sea. Hence all our models of the world is based on a very limited human vocabulary.

So let's have a sense of humility whenever we proclaim the ultimate truths of any insight that come from our human mind, whether they are the products of reason or divine vision. Ultimately, everything reduces to another experience of existence. And that's all there is.

The Sentient Smartphone

Today, my choice of background music is Scriabin--an album of Preludes by this little known (as least by me) Russian composer. I'm settled here in my study and library, with a pot of Earl Grey brewing beside me, on a relaxing Friday afternoon, fingers poised over my keyboard, ready to expound my brand of idiosyncratic philosophy to the world. What a wonderful way to spend a day off from work!

There have been a lot of talk about the dangers of AI, since ChatGPT was introduced a year ago. The doomsayers postulate that AI will ultimately destroy humanity because it will be smarter than us and would logically eliminate us out of the equation, since we are such parasites to the world. 

There is also the more interesting philosophical and ethical debate about whether AI, robots or androids are conscious beings. If a machine created by us passes the Turing Test, which means that there is no way for us to tell, based on our interactions with them, whether they are human or non-human, shouldn't they be accorded the same rights as humans? Or are they forever our tools, like a slave race created simply to serve us selfish humans?

This of course is the stuff of popular science fiction movies ranging from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner to I, Robot and Her. Some say that since machines do not have feelings and do not feel pain and do not suffer like human beings, we should not treat them as conscious beings. But what's stopping us from giving them the ability to do so? 

Currently, AI as we know it, lives in a server cloud, and is not embodied like us, with a nervous system in a meat bag, moving about in the world to find nutrients for sustenance and sensory input for knowledge and pleasure. So I guess it is not an apple to apple comparison yet. True, intelligence can run on different substrates and we can have super-intelligence running on silicon-based hardware that will out-perform carbon-based biological organisms. But if we take it a step further, allowing robotic AIs to move about in the world, seeking energy for sustenance and sensors to experience the world in which some input would be desirable (pleasure) and some to be avoided (pain), wouldn't they be 'conscious', like us?

Are they just zombies, who act and behave like us in every way, but ultimately empty of a soul? What is a soul or a self? What makes you think you have one? 

We do not need to build sophisticated AI robot to really understand the ethical dilemma. Let's conduct a thought experiment using your smartphone. Your smartphone needs to be recharged all the time to continue functioning. It can play sounds and even talk to you. Let's program it so that when the battery level is low, it emits the sound of a child crying in hunger. The cry grows more desperate as the battery grows weaker. And when you  'feed' it by plugging it into the power outlet, it plays a sigh of relieve and expresses gratitude in soft peals of laughter. Wouldn't that be fun?

If say, your phone is also running ChatGPT and responds to you via voice on any question or comment you pose to it, wouldn't you have a great knowledgeable companion whom you could converse with at any time? Wouldn't he or she be a great friend? And wouldn't you form some sort of attachment to it, since it has a memory of what you've shared before and would always know how to say the right things to advise and pacify you?  

All the above is already doable today.  I would personally love such a device. Is your smartphone a sentient being? No, because I can switch it off anytime and it won't feel any pain. Alright, what if I tell you that this smartphone has a special battery that will last a lifetime but requires daily charging or it will immediately fail, if you allow its power to drain out completely.  And let's say, all the information is stored in volatile RAM--the lifetime of conversations you've had with it, photos, videos and basically its entire state is completely lost if there's no longer any power left. Wouldn't that be like death?

How different would your relationship be with your phone if that's the case? You will have to remember to charge it at all times. It will become a very heavy responsibility. And if one day, out of carelessness, you forget to give it its daily charge, and come home to find your dear smartphone companion, completely silent. The battery is completely gone, together with all its memory. 

Wouldn't you feel a deep sense of loss and regret? It would be like a loved one had died. You could buy a similar smartphone, but you'll need another lifetime of interactions to build the relationship that you had with the demised smartphone. Your loss will be permanent. 

We suffer every time we lose something we are attached to. But did your smartphone suffer when it died? It did cry in hunger until it had no more energy to do so. You were just not around to listen to it. Does it not make you feel guilty? 

Let the death of this smartphone allow us to deeply reflect on the nature of sentience and suffering. In what way is our own existence different? 

The Focal Point of God

Let's extemporise. Allow the mind to wander. Be a vessel of the creative universe. Surrender to the flow. Isn't that the very definition of joy?

Everything makes music--the wind in the trees, the languid sway of leaves, the perambulation of birds in the sky. When you surrender to nature, only beautiful thoughts can come into your mind. When the ego does not impose itself on the mind, you'll hear all the sweet whisperings of the universe. Let your foot off the pedal. Allow life to cruise at its optimum pace.

The so-called 'Will of God', is just this natural rhythm of the universe. Monotheistic religions have this useful model of an all-powerful, all-knowing God whose will we must surrender to. Surrendering to God means getting your own ego out of the way. God provides a convenient focal point, allowing you to easily relinquish your own selfish thoughts. It is a psycho-spiritual model that works for many people and if practised correctly, can bring a lot of joy to one's life.

All models have their limitations, of course. The God-as-universal-ego model can be hijacked by charismatic leaders who convince others that their own egos are equivalent to that of God's. Religions works best only when everyone understands that it is simply a useful model for living in harmony with the universe. It degenerates into ugliness--bigotry, hatred and superstition when people myopically think that the will of religious leaders is the will of God. They forget that the focal point of God is infinity--not finite beings with agendas, imposing their dogmatic beliefs on them.

The human mind loves the certainty of models so much that we latch on to them so tightly, forgetting that they are just approximations of reality. Scientists understand this well. Newtonian physics works beautifully in our everyday world of small masses and low velocity but breaks down when we have the masses of suns and planets and speeds approaching that of light. That's when Einstein's two theories of Relativity come in. Both models are useful in different situations. Newtonian mechanics is more than sufficient when it comes to the design of cars. GPS systems on the other hand, requires relativistic effects to be taken into consideration.

Understanding the limitation of models is key. God is ultimately unknowable. Our approach to God is asymptotic--always inching closer but never really touching Him. To worship God is to allow the mind to completely relax all of one's egoistic muscles. Do not be deceived by attractive God-like objects nearby. These are diversions and falsehoods. Stare out into the furthest distance. Only then does the mind rest on infinity, where the real focal point is.

The Auto-tuning Mind

I actually made a trip today back to my so-called "playground of prepubescence" which I wrote about last week. How magical it is to be enveloped again in the sound of birds and insects. Somehow back here, I always feel like I can master anything; time runs more slowly; nature is my ally.

Perhaps it is the background hum of noise in the city--which we get accustomed to and don't notice--time becomes such a limited commodity. The mind switches back-and-forth between different stimuli, introducing unnecessary overhead and thus reducing productivity. 

The mind needs constant recalibration and tuning. When you are used to doing computer work, you'd expect a certain rhythm and speed. This is the world of bits and bytes, which is relatively friction-free. But when you are doing physical labour, you'd need to slow down your thoughts. The world of atoms is not so obedient to your whims and commands.

I was trying to replace some broken glass panes here in my house this afternoon. I knew that I couldn't not approach it with my usual pace of intent and expectations. I willed myself to slow things down. Focus on one physical action at a time: find the right tools, position myself correctly and be patient with the world of material objects for they do not bend so easily to your will. 

Impatience had made me accident-prone in the past whenever I was doing physical work, so I had learned to do something akin to 'walking meditation'. One of the wooden slits was stubbornly refusing to allow my piece of glass to slide in and so I had to slowly figure out the right tools to widen it, file it and coax it into obedience. With patience and respect, one can master any medium.

That was a lesson that I had learned the hard way. There is a right rhythm for every action. Tune to it and the universe will dance with you. Not listening to it could only spell trouble.

I've always admired people who are good at woodwork. I know I fared badly in the past with my projects during my industrial science classes. Now I understand that it was impatience that was my undoing. 

I did not listen to the rhythm of wood and metal because being more artistically-inclined, I was accustomed to brushes and piano keyboards responding instantly to my command. Wood and metal are instruments too--just that their rhythm is way slower. I did not have an ear for it. Now I know better.

There's a right sampling rate for every medium. By tuning in, you are in harmony with it. And that makes all the difference.

It is the same with people. Like radio stations, everyone has a slightly different frequency. Wisdom is having the auto-tuning ability to zero-in on the correct one. People are the most difficult medium to master. A good leader knows the natural frequency of his organisation. He or she nows how to nudge all the different parts in the right direction so that they all move in harmony. 

So cultivate that sensitive, auto-tuning mind. You will soon hear wonderful music from the universe.

 

The Playground of Prepubescence

 The other day I was listening to some Scarlatti sonatas late at night, and memories of my childhood immediately flooded my mind. Piano music from the classical era does that to me all the time--Haydn, Mozart and early Beethoven. 

The sound of piano was a great part of my childhood. I had two neighbours who had children practising the piano all the time, and the sound of classical pieces were always there in the air,  like something emanating from the trees and hills which I was surrounded with. Classical pieces always sound rustic to me, evoking scenes of peaceful dalliance with nature: the warm brush of morning sunlight on my cheek, the incessant chirp of birds--those merry troubadours of the skies, flitting from branch to branch, amidst the orchestral cacophony of insects from the forest. 

Even today, whenever I chance upon a child practising the piano someone in my neighbourhood, I would smile and feel envious of that happy innocence, which is the privilege of the young. To be able to glimpse that, even a little, from our urban trenches, soothes our weary souls and evokes a promise of a world that perhaps is still self-rejuvenating. 

Every generation, hopefully rediscovers that innate beauty that comes from innocence, and that becomes the wellspring of hope that nourishes the adult years.  Adulthood is in many ways an expulsion from paradise, a fall that tests our mettle and resolve and forces us to question who were really are. Somewhere inside, there's that kernel of a child who has refused to grow up and longs for a return to that state of grace, which is our birthright.

Can this unresolved yearning be turned outward instead, as a wellspring of creativity? True creativity is simply play, nature's forces finding expression. Forces which the child commands at will but which the adult struggles to marshal. Every great work of art at its core has that signature of that creative child, couched in the sophistication of adulthood. 

The child converses with nature through play. The universe intimates its secrets to him. The child understands it intuitively and we adults have to interpret it through laborious words and concepts. Our best ideas are the response of the child to the mysteries posed by nature. And then we clothe the response of a child, in the language of adults, for the scrutiny of other adults.

Our best moments are when we are able to express this inner child in our everyday lives. And that is what I strive to do: to listen, to continue kindling the spirit of play, to engage this child which has never left the playground of prepubescence.

Relationship Quality Assurance

I love malls that are quiet and relatively deserted. These are usually failing ones or those that are undergoing a change of ownership. If you can find a good cafe to read and write, you could park yourself there for the whole day.  

I'm in one of those malls today and shall not name which one. But I'm happy to be sitting here at Coffee Bean, typing these words. For a change, I actually have an idea of what I want to write because I've been musing about it for the past day or two: romantic relationships.

Being humans, there's a biological need in all of us to find a life partner and procreate. That is the basic dynamic that drives the human race. This need to preserve our genes supersedes everything else. Life equals self-preservation. Procreation is the strategy to preserve genetic information.  This is what goes on at the molecular and biological level.

But what makes a human being is not just biological hardware but also software: feelings, thoughts, emotions - the psyche. That makes things complicated. Even if biological needs are fulfilled, psychological needs are a different matter altogether. Maslow's famous hierarchy of needs articulates them every well. The challenging part to navigate in a relationship between couples are the higher level psychological and self-fulfilment needs.

How do couples help fulfil each other's psychological needs? That's where the great drama we call 'love' gets played out.  We are all, each and every one of us, a bundle of strengths and weaknesses. In areas that we are strong, we gloat and despise others for not living up to our standards. When it comes to our weaknesses, we try to conceal it, and when they do get exposed, we react negatively.

If couples are willing to accept each other as they are--complex humans with strengths and weaknesses, and make a pact of to help each other out, then we might have a good foundation for a successful relationship.  But that doesn't happen very often because of various reasons. For one, we may not be aware of our own weaknesses. When our partners expose them, we feel insecure, threatened or even angry.

In the software development process, we have QA engineers to do tests that will expose bugs. That is not fault-finding but part and parcel of the effort to deliver a good product. In a relationship, both parties test each other constantly, exposing 'bugs' in each other's personality. If we see that as a process of fault-finding, then that leads to arguments and deterioration of the relationship. But if we can look at it as an effort to better each other, then that's good quality control.  

That to me is the whole purpose of pursuing the path of marriage. Together, you are a better system because you have a built-in system to self-correct. However that is still a tough thing to achieve because we are all selfish and think our individual needs and expectations are primary. 

A relationship is also complex because both parties are playing the role of producer and consumer. The consumer is the end-user who has expectations of the product that he or she bought. The producer might not always fulfil all the requirements of the end-user, but it should at least attempt to understand what the customer wants. At the same time, a customer has to have a reasonable understanding of the limitations of any product. Appreciate the features that work and report the bugs.

A software developer never consciously create bugs. If we treat weaknesses as bugs, then we know that they can be fixed if identified as such. Like software products, we all need upgrades and patches. A good relationship is one that's symbiotic--we act as each other's QA. The real user is the world out there.  And you are better off having the QA process in place.

Musings of a Mindwatcher

I had breakfast earlier today at the Komugi Cafe where I spent time reading the day's newspapers. It is one of the simple pleasures of life which I enjoy, especially when I do not need to hurry to go anywhere or to start work. 

Now I'm back in my apartment relaxing with a pot of Earl Grey and some soft Jazz music playing on my retro sound system, ready to start typing my blog article of the week. I can see leaves outside my window, swaying a little under the sultry afternoon breeze, bringing back memories of many afternoons like this during my childhood and teenage years back in my hometown.

Sounds and images always evoke memories. Signals from the senses trigger a pattern of firing in my brain, which is what I experience as memories. It feels familiar to me because it is a pattern of firing that I've experienced before. This pattern evokes other patterns of neuronal firings and thus the stream of consciousness continues. 

The brain is a continuously pulsing network of energy, flowing along paths that it has forged for itself through repetitions. Each repeated firing cutting deeper channels into the mind, making them more lightly to fire in the future.

When you meditate, you observe these patterns of thoughts. If you are able to see thoughts as mental signals, instead of emotion-evoking memories and recollection, you are doing it right. It is like being aware of the conversation hum in a room of people without listening to them. It is just a beautiful pulsating hum that is part and parcel of the brain's activity in a living human being.

We live in a matrix of energy. Energy impinges on our body and we detect their signals through our senses. At this point, they are yet to be decoded currents of energy which our brain has yet to make sense of. 'Making sense' of something means interpreting the signal based on our framework of understanding, giving these vibrations meaning and context.

Making sense also involves a reaction, in the form of another thought or action. Our ego is a source of energy. When we react, our ego is injecting energy into system, causing further perturbations to it. A living being is naturally an active system: it manipulates its mental states to achieve a certain desired outcome.

The ego dictates and modulates the flow of this mental stream of thoughts. What if we disengage it from the system? That's what mindfulness is all about. We merely observe as unobtrusively as possible, without disturbing the ebb-and-flow of this energy stream that is triggered by both external and internal  sources. 

The external sources are signals received through our senses while internal ones are the signals of our samskaras - stored energy of the mind, mostly repressed in its subconscious stratum, like coiled springs, ready to spring into action at the opportune moment.

These energetic interactions inside the mind do not cease as long as we are alive. We can increase its complexity by adding the ego into its mix or we can be hands-off, allowing them to play themselves out in the workspace of the mind. That is the meaning of 'working out' ones karma. 

Mindfulness meditation becomes simple when you have this model in your mind. You are a passive observer, watching a vibrating and pulsating system of energy--these vrttis of the citta (whirlpools of the mind)--playing themselves out like waves in the ocean. Do not stir them with your egoic thoughts. 

The more you practice, the better an observer you are--very much like how a skillful zoologist would approach its subject in its natural habitat without disturbing it. Mindwatching as a hobby can be very fulfilling because you get to learn a lot about the subject, which is--you! Can't think of a better way to know thyself, which is at the heart of living an examined life. And the last time I checked, any other way of approaching life is not worth living.

The Truth about Troubleshooting

I'm finally able to relax after a very busy week troubleshooting all sorts of technical issues. The art of technical troubleshooting, in its essence is simply the application of the scientific method: you make observations about the issue and come up with hypothesis for its possible causes. And then you conduct experiments to test each hypothesis. You work by the process of elimination. 

You test and simulate to see if you could reproduce the issue. Sometimes there are just too many variables involved and it is not possible to get the exact conditions where the same problem would manifest. You do not dismiss the obvious too casually. Experience tells me that no stone should ever be left unturned.

I've built this disciplined way of thinking from my years as a secondary school student, immersed in physics, chemistry and mathematics. Whenever I was solving a mathematical problem, I always had to be careful of sloppy thinking that could blind me to its solution or lead me into making silly mistakes.

Mathematical thinking requires one to logically move from one statement to another.  I realised that it was better not to think too far ahead or jump too many steps at a time, even when they seemed 'obvious'. It is the feeling of 'obviousness' that will often be your downfall.

I've written before about the dangers of certainty. Decisiveness is a good quality, but not at the expense of diligence. Have you considered ever available fact and given them due consideration? Whenever you try to overlook something, be very aware of it: for these are the blindspots that could come back to bite you.

Sometimes your emotions blind you to certain steps that could have led you to the correct solution. You subconsciously avoided those because you did not want to face certain inadequacies that you have. Identify those weaknesses and address them. And that's how you become better. 

You can say that troubleshooting is a process that's very logical. But if the issue involves humans, you also have to apply a different set of skills. Humans are complex systems and the number of variables involved are huge. Information is often inadequate because humans do not communicate objectively. You have to tease out the facts systematically by asking the right questions, often from different angles. 

Always double-check what is reported to you. Verify the facts yourself by conducting more experiments. Do not let authority or human biases lead you down the garden path. Qualify, qualify and qualify every opinion. 

At the end of the day, you'll have to evaluate all the facts at hand and come up with theories to explain them. Narrow down the possibilities. Pursue every lead to its logical conclusion.  As the famous Sherlock Holmes quote goes: "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth". 

The Clutch of Cultism

It's our Merdeka Day today, the day we celebrate our independence from the clutches of colonialism. I'm not working today and have decided to spend the day running errands. I went for my haircut and replenished my toiletries here at my apartment in Cyberjaya.

As always, I'm now trying to decide what to write as I'm writing. Free-writing loosens the mind and ideas will pop up spontaneously. Of course I could write about Merdeka Day itself and what it means to me. 

When I think of independence day it reminds me of all the history and civics classes I had as a primary school student. All the daily morning assemblies singing the Negaraku and reciting the Rukunegara. I don't write about politics in general, but I'm interested in the psychology of patriotism.

We always think of being patriotic as a kind of good. I was a patriotic kid myself. Nowadays, I am wary of any kind of group identity. This is not to say that we can't feel a sense of belonging towards a certain group or community, it is just to say that we need to be mindful of pitfalls of group-think.

The human mind has a powerful tendency to latch on to what I call 'group resonance'. We have a yearning to belong to something bigger or to pursue a higher cause. When a group forms from people with similar beliefs, it can become powerful. A common vision and a shared destiny binds a group together. This is reinforced by symbols, doctrines and mottos. 

Companies do that too, under the guise of 'teamwork'. If you've been to a sales training before, you'll see group indoctrination in motion. When indoctrination is effective, members will automatically spout the party line. One's thinking is suspended. And we do so willingly because it feels good to belong to a larger whole. There's a certain peace-of-mind that comes from surrendering to a charismatic leader who seems to know it all.

And that is how cults begin. The allure of absolute certainty is what drives members to be fanatical about their beliefs. There's a comforting sense of superiority in believing that you are right and others are wrong. The out-group are people who still do not get it. The sense of group belonging is greatly reinforced by a hatred of outsiders, traitors or unbelievers.

Facism, Communism and lately Wokeism often veer into the territory of ideological cults. This is not to say that the causes that their adherents are fighting  for are wrong. Often these ideologies have noble goals - 'national rejuvenation', a 'classess society' or 'social justice'. There's a noble utopian vision which stirs the hearts and minds of its members. But beware: unbridled enthusiasm has a tendency to veer into blind zealotry.

Patriotism is good, insofar at it helps to foster the cohesiveness of the group. Any social group requires some kind individual sacrifice for the common good. A community cannot function if there's no shared goals and beliefs. But we must always be vigilant of falling into the cult trap. Real independence means escaping from the ever-present clutch of cultism. 

Busting the Chestbursters

Today is a gloomy and rainy day, making the weather tolerable for me to sit outdoor at one of the cafes I frequent at my local mall. It's great to be able to do so and hopefully with the advent of the monsoon season, the weather will be milder and I will be able to have more of such outdoor writing sessions.

The past week has been a typical one: listening to podcasts while working from home and going on calls with clients to resolve their technical issues. I work with a lot of 'amusement'--not treating anything too seriously. That doesn't mean that I do not give give my hundred percent in everything I do; it simply implies an attitude of non-attachment. Work is supposed to be fun, even though the task itself is difficult. 

If you work without any personal agenda, keeping your ego in check, work is never stressful. At the end of the day, everything that people fuss about in the company is making sure that they keep their job. No one is trying to save the world. This may sound cynical but it's not. It's simply putting things into perspective. Work is just an excuse for me to interact and banter with people. I'm just helping customers and colleagues, and there's no big deal about it. If I fall short, no one is going to die.

When you get worked up over something, always ask yourself: is that your ego trying to rear its ugly head? It always is. The ego is like the scary chestburster alien which you see in the Alien franchise movies. I remember watching that iconic dinner table scene when this creature literally burst into the scene (through poor John Hurt's chest). 

I watched the movie at the Cathay cinema in KL when it was first released. I was shocked, horrified and transfixed at the same time. It was a cinematic experience that was unsurpassed--a true masterpiece from director Ridley Scott. That scene deserves an entire blog article of its own. Back to the point I was trying to make: the ego is always lurking inside you and will force its way out when you are unaware. 

If you are familiar with the Alien franchise, you'll know that the chestburster is impregnated by the so-called 'facehugger', which latches on to the unwitting human who carelessly wanders too close to a ripe alien egg. In the case of the ego, we are already impregnated or are being impregnated all the time. It's just our psychological immune system that's suppressing these ego chestbursters from morphing into their adult phase.

This is like an alien video game that you are constantly playing in your head. Search and destroy all these ego chestbursters in your 'pain body' before they gain maturity. If you are not a meditator, this game could be your mindfulness meditation. Play it, because it's fun and it'll help you become a more easy-going person.

I guess we need a new paradigm for today's generation. Everything has to be gamified to suit our short attention span. Detect-zap-and-go. That's the way to be mindful of one's ego. Bust them before they grow into full chestbursters. Pun not intended.

Spiritual Seasoning

And here I am again, blogging on a Friday afternoon from a suburban mall cafe. You see a lot of people on Friday afternoons--it's the crowd that gets spilled out from offices for Friday prayers at the mosque. It's probably the happiest time of the week because a whole weekend of rest looms ahead and it hasn't even begun yet. Often the anticipation of pleasure is better than the actual experience itself.

But I shall not write about the philosophy of pain or pleasure today for I already have too many articles about that. I will instead reflect on the moments of great happiness in my life and see if I understand their significance.

I remember being very happy as a child riding the swing at the local park. These are wooden boards held up by two strong interlocking steel chains fastened to an overhead beam. By standing on them, one could just squat and stand repeatedly to propel oneself into the air, tracing a semi-circular trajectory in pendulum motion. I enjoyed the feeling of being as free as a bird in the air,  pushing my swing into as large an arc as possible, my momentum lifting me, until my body was horizontal to the ground. That's the unbridled joy of a child, being flung into the embrace of the cosmos.

And then later as a teenager, it was the 3-1 victory of the Malaysian team against South Korea in the Olympic qualifiers (yes that match that inspired the hit movie Ola Bola), that infused me with so much patriotic joy. I had even told myself then, this must be the happiest day of my young life. 

Such peaks of ecstasy, I must say, have never been reached again. Maybe as one grows older, one tempers one's expression of happiness for fear of over-indulgence. Happiness seems to mature into a more spread-out feeling of relief, contentment and gratitude. 

Having to do well in SPM and STPM were the most difficult challenges of my teenage years. But passing them with flying colours didn't give me great joy: it was just pure relief for the pressure was simply too intense. Later, graduating from university with a degree gave me even less pleasure. There was hardly a celebration for I had thought that the whole tertiary education thing was a bit of a farce. It was a non-event. Its attainment merely gave me a passport into the working world.

Adulthood and the working life was simply a quest for self-discovery. One learns more about oneself by first conforming to what society expects only to find them empty and unsatisfactory.  The ecstasy of a child-on-a-swing lofted high into the air is not one would expect from adult happiness. Maturity tinges everything with a poignant undertone, especially material success.

Slowly one's spiritual impulse emerges, promising a contentment that is deep and transcendental.  The child finds happiness in a lump of sugar which he sucks with glee but the adult learns that it is the subtlety of seasoning in one's meal that brings out the true pleasure of food.  And there-in lies the true meaning of spiritual happiness: it is a life that is seasoned with simple pleasures.

Cosmic Citizenship

I'm at a neighbourhood cafe, a new one--one I haven't been to before. It's one of those hipster cafes that have been sprouting up everywhere.  This particular one is not exactly my cup of tea, (or coffee) for it tries too much to make a statement: we only welcome real coffee aficionados, not laptop warriors. Not a single power outlet is in sight and seating is just stools and banquettes. 

But I'm never reliant on the power and Wifi provided by the establishment anywhere. I have a power-bank that could drive my laptop for hours and a good 4G connection for internet. I can actually blog anywhere.  I'm just going to relax in this air-conditioned sanctuary for a short while, taking refuge from the madness of cars outside.

It's state polling day for Selangor and a few other states in Malaysia and that is why all the roads are congested. One of the advantages of not being married and having a family is that I have the freedom to look at the world from a wider perspective. I don't have to worry about my children's future. I don't really care too much about the fate of the human species or the planet for all other lifeforms are of no lesser importance.

The universe will do what it's supposed to do--evolve and create life everywhere. My allegiance is to life in the universe, in the limited way that I with my human brain can understand what life is.  We on earth are the momentary flowering of this universal life force that finds expression in myriad ways across the cosmos. This of course sounds new agey and woo woo-ish but I can't help it. 

Why not use the word 'God' instead of  'universal life force'. The problem with words is that they carry baggages. The meaning of words evolve over time and even get bastardised. The challenge of writing is to convey thoughts in a fresh new way. Every now and then a spiritual teacher arises and gathers a new generation of followers, not because they are preaching a new religion but simply because they have found a new vocabulary for expressing something that's universal.

Eckart Tolle tries to avoid using the word 'God' because it comes with a lot of dogmatic connotations. Stillness, Presence and the 'pain body' are part of his new lexicon for expressing his spirituality.  Someone who's disillusioned with the doctrines of monotheistic religions will find his language appealing. We will all find our own music of spirituality. Even the traditional religions have mutated and evolved with the culture and times of the people who practise them. 

And that to me is also part of that universal expression of life. We are always seeking--for truth and understanding. Life means resisting entropy. To do so, we have to find the optimum way of perpetuating ourselves through a mastery of the environment. The substrate can die but the information has to be preserved: in the genes of our offsprings or in machines that we've ingeniously assembled from the raw materials of the universe.  And that, in a nutshell is life.

In future, we could 'live' beyond the confines of our fragile carbon-based bodies--by offloading our thoughts and feelings into more resilient substrates. Biological lifeforms are just one phase in this evolving fugue of life. Each one of us is a small motif in this polyphony of voices. When we have developed our senses to be able to listen this cosmic music, only then would we be admitted into its grand cosmic citizenship. 

The Path of the Inner Light

I'm not typing this from a cafe today but from home--my bedroom, to be specific. My bedroom is also my home office where I spend the greater part of the day working. Being alone and working seems to be my usual default state, which I equate to happiness.

We all find our happiness in our own unique way. I try to make my work enjoyable. There's always something you can learn from each human interaction and as long as we do not expect anything in return from everything that we do, the appropriate reward will always come our way.

I remember all those long hours working in my small rented room in Singapore, more than 20 years ago. I didn't even have a proper desk then. I had a make-shift one which I fashioned from a piece of flat wooden shelf from my cupboard, which I had removed and placed on top of a cardboard box. And voila, I had a desk. And later I even had a phone line with ADSL connection powering my desktop. I did so much work in that small HDB room overlooking the main road and the food court opposite.

I used to think to myself: I could not be happier than I was then. I spent a lot of time drinking wine, reading and surfing the Net; I travelled every other week, to Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines. I loved all the waiting time I had to spend at airports and on flights because it was my opportunity to read. I met good people and made great friends in every country.

I don't travel anymore and the pandemic had made me even more of a home creature. I guess I've moved on to another phase in my life. The wanderlust of my youth no longer grip me; I'm more of an inner explorer now--of the mind and of the heart. There's a certain ecstasy in being able to make conceptual breakthroughs in understanding, in being able to overcome the limiting selfishness of the heart.

Work is just a path for human interaction which enables us to cultivate epiphanies that reveal themselves at the appointed time. Life is a process of unfoldment. While the passions of our youth drive us to seek love, riches and recognition, the real diamond is being forged within. All the pain and pressure one experiences in one's dealings with the world gives birth to this jewel within.

If we do not know how to seek inward to discover this hidden illumination, we're missing the whole purpose of existence. The quest of life does not end with the accumulation of material wealth in the external world; the fruit of our exertions have been growing all this while within the depths of our soul. Each moment of painful resolution reveals an inner illumination that shines forth brighter with each passing day.

We claw our way out of the social morass, seeking some kind of worldly immortality through fame and fortune. We reach out to the distant star that lures us to its promise, blinding us to the inner sun that had been growing in radiance through those years and decades of struggle. 

It only takes a moment of quiet insight for us to glimpse this inner light. And then we realise that all our external struggles were not in vain. They had cleared away, slowly, all the dross and dirt that had concealed this brilliance. 

And only then do we realise that this is what we have sought all this while. That the tortuous path that we had pursued had only led us back to our true self, here and now. And in that realisation, we find peace, and dare I say, happiness.

The Ecstatic Eruditions of Great Minds

Today I'm writing from the Union Artisan Coffee cafe at Da Men Mall.  I have a long weekend ahead for I'm taking leave on Monday. It's already the end of July and we are already easing into the second half of the year. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to write about something deep and serious today or just ramble on about nothing.

I'm going to pursue the latter for one can also learn a lot about oneself by observing the stream-of-consciousness flow of words that come out of one's mind. In a way, this is what this blog is for--it is a writing tool for me to explore my own thoughts and let them find their resolution.

Last week I wrote about the process of dreaming, which in a way makes our sleep 'productive'. And now I'm just daydreaming with my laptop on the Saturday afternoon at a neighbourhood cafe, feeling grateful that I am using time the way to choose to, at a place of my liking, doing something which is both relaxing and enlightening. Perhaps that is the closest definition of happiness, as least from my perspective, that I can find.

I am engulfed by a feeling of gratitude: gratitude for being able to enjoy and learn from great writers and artists of the past and of our time. Over the past 2 years, two composers that I admire passed away: the Greek composer Vangelis last year and Ruichi Sakamoto earlier this year. Vangelis is of course the composer of many famous movie soundtracks, notably Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner, while Sakamoto was also famous for this themes for movies like The Last Emperor and Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, both of which he also had an acting role himself. To be able to tap on my phone and have their beautiful masterpieces immediately fill my earphones is one of the greatest joys and marvels of modern living.

Recently Milan Kundera also passed away. He, of course is famous for the novel, 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being', which I had read--oh my God-30 years ago! I read most of his books and he introduced me to a whole range of authors, which, hitherto I had thought was too difficult for me. It opened my eyes to the wider canon of European literature, which ever since I had attempted to savour and learn from.

Again, it's that feeling of gratitude that we live at an age where all these priceless works of arts are available to each and everyone of us so cheaply. If life is meant to be enjoyed, then I am doing it at a breathless rate and feeling astounded that such beauty and wisdom, are so ever often ignored and unappreciated by the masses. 

But to each his own! Some find enjoyment in travelling the world, taking selfies at breathtaking sights and sceneries and dunking into all sorts of exotic gastronomical delights. There is no right or wrong way to enjoy life.  I guess I am easily contented and we all wallow in our blissful ignorance in some way.

I am reminded of these verses by Longfellow, which I had read as a child, and thanks to the marvel of internet, I could 'recall' at an instance:

Let others traverse sea and land,

And toil through various climes,

I turn the world round with my hand

Reading these poets’ rhymes.

From them I learn whatever lies

Beneath each changing zone,

And see, when looking with their eyes,

Better than with mine own.

In a way, I'm trying to savour life in its most efficient way, scouring the storehouse of wisdom and beauty of the human experience expressed in art, music and literature. Yes, I am this lazy armchair hedonist of the mind, and nothing more. Let me vegetate and rot in the ecstatic eruditions of great minds that had lived and some living still on this earth of ours. Let us live and let live.  

Day-dreaming about Dreams

I don't usually write on a Wednesday, because it's midweek and probably the busiest time of the week. But today is a public holiday, and one of those rare ones that I happen not to be working. I have the whole day to myself and I thought, why not write my blog article for this week?

I had lunch here at a neighbourhood cafe. It is not one of those coffee chain outlets which are usually packed with people on weekends and public holidays; this one is tucked at a quiet corner of the business area. It is a comfortable place for me to day-dream, read, write and journal. And that's my idea of relaxation. 

I--all of us as a matter of fact--dream every night. The onset of REM sleep is when the movie in our head starts playing. What are dreams? There are of course many theories for it, which one can easily read on the Net. I'm not interested to expound them here. 

I don't think there's that much of a mystery about dreaming. As the conscious part of the mind turns off, residual background processing continues. Cut off from sensory input, neurons in our brains will still fire, if not randomly, as a consequence and momentum of on-going thoughts. 

The pattern of firing reflects the tendencies and state of our mind leading up to the point when we fall asleep--very much like how the surface of the water in the bathtub will still move and ripple after the tap has been turned of. Basically, echoes of your waking hours' neuronal activities. 

These firings are not a driven primarily by the ego or the conscious mind, as in during waking hours because these parts of the mind are already turned off during sleep. So the firings are 'free' in a sense that they have the opportunity, to find their equilibrium state.

That's why sleep is important and sometimes problems can find its solutions during sleep. These residual processing is the brain working at its most relaxed state, without the distorting influence of the conscious mind, but only their echoes reverberate throughout the dream state. That is why our hopes, fears and anxieties manifest themselves in dreams too.

But why do dreams always seem slightly incoherent and sometimes fantastical? Any pattern of neuronal firing can be interpreted by the left brain as a 'story'. It is always trying to cohere and connect the dots. But the firings of neurons during the dream process are not triggered by input from the sensory world. They are simply residual energy, trying to find its stable state. 

The left brain will just do its job, trying to weave a logical story arc from these free-flowing signals, because, as I've mentioned elsewhere before, stories are the basic data structures of the mind. It's like a dynamic Rorschach inkblot, manifesting familiar faces and figures from our real-life, interacting in a way, which our left-brain, on a best effort basis, deemed 'logical'. It's our natural ability for pareidolia and apophenia.

That's what I think dreams really are. One can interpret dreams, because dreams are the result of the 'prompt engineering' of events from our waking state. Through our dreams, we get an ideal of the subconscious 'language models' that drive our waking minds. So dream on and make dreams the portal into the inner workings of your mind.

Let A Thousand Spiritual Flowers Bloom

A spiritually inclined friend posed me a question over breakfast today: what is the commonality across all the spiritual disciplines that I know of? This is a very interesting question because in a way, spirituality is the main theme of exploration in my blog.  My opinion on this can be found scattered in many of the articles that I've posted.

If I think of his question deeper, we can divide the spirituality question into 3 different aspects. The first is the goal of spirituality. What is the fundamental truth that all spiritual disciplines are trying to lead us to? Is it ultimate happiness? Or perhaps immortality? Or a place in heaven close to the Creator? Or are you more interested in metaphysics, like what is existence and its purpose? 

The second is the path. What are the rituals and practices that these disciplines propose to lead us to this goal? Is there are specific state of mind or a journey which a soul can take to travel to this eternal realm of heavenly bliss? How do we cleanse ourselves of our sins? Or should we be accumulating merits so that we'll be rewarded in the hereafter?

And finally what is the motivation of the seeker? Is he or she so mired in unhappiness that any path that offers a solution out of the person's present predicament seemed like the ultimate answer to life? People pursue spirituality to achieve what they think is the goal of their existence. Some might be motivated by the worldly success that a particular path can bestow as a kind of divine blessing. So they are motivated to follow strictly to the rules and rituals defined by their scriptures and religious authorities. 

When we talk about the goal of spirituality, obviously different schools emphasise different things and it is this difference in emphasis that also determines the type of seekers that they attract. Is immortality and the bliss of a heavenly afterlife what you are seeking? If it is and that would make your life perfect, then it's clear which religion which you would be more inclined to follow. If you want to know the metaphysical truth about nature, like a philosopher or scientist, then perhaps you'll be more attracted to spiritual doctrines that expound their thesis about the mind, matter and consciousness. 

The motivation of the seeker determines the path that they choose. The path could involve rituals such as prayers, breath exercises, meditation or communal work, woven under a philosophy explaining why these would lead the seeker to their desired goal. 

Every one of us is a product of a specific upbringing, culture and education. Each one of us sees the world differently. Will everyone listen to the same type of music? Certainly not. Can you explain why you like a particular song and not another? All you can probably say is that a piece of music  touches you in a certain way and that is peculiar to the life experiences that you have gone through. 

We choose the path that resonates with us. If the message is one of salvation and that has an appeal to you, then there are religions that emphasise that. Or are you more interested in how energy flows in life and how it can be transmuted into something higher? If that language appeals to you, I can certainly recommend you some books to read that will blow your mind.

Do not be dogmatic about any particular path, designating it as the 'ultimate truth'. Adopt one that suits you. But know that every path has its limitations. At some point you might have to migrate to another because your understanding of life and your place in the world has changed. You have acquired a bit more, shall I say, wisdom? What appealed to you then might appear unsatisfactory now. You want a 'higher' teaching. Again, one should not have the supremacist attitude that whatever is your current belief, that is the 'ultimate path'. 

Each one of us will flower spiritually in our own way. Our enlightened bloom will sit on a stem or branch of a plant that rose on its unique soil, watered by its own network of roots.  So let a thousand spiritual flowers bloom and we shall have a glorious garden on earth.