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.

A Matrix of Minds

Blogging on a Friday afternoon is a great feeling:  it means that I am not working today and I already had the leisure of going for a slow breakfast this morning and the opportunity to run some errands. Now I'm just relaxing with my thoughts here in my abode of books.

The sad news yesterday was the untimely death of popular singer Coco Lee, aged 48, apparently from suicide. It is reported that she has been suffering from depression for a long time. Depression is a topic I've often written about, even though (thankfully) I do not have any first-hand experience. 

What I've perhaps had are glimpses of paths that could have led me to depression--or at least that was my guess then. I cannot be sure. I know that sometimes our minds plunge into a rut of negativity and darkness which is difficult to pull ourselves out from. This is like a psychological black hole, which if one crosses the event horizon, one sinks inexorable into a very dark place.

People with bipolar disorder swing wildly between the dark and bright. It is strange how our brain chemistry works. There's a delicate balance of chemicals in our brain and nervous system which determines the fluctuations of our mood and mental state. This balance could be lost, leading us to mania or depression. When we lose our balance or fall, we need a helping hand to pull us up again.

Sometimes therapy could help. Sometimes a dose of the right chemicals could restore that balance too. Life in essence is a constant quest to maintain this balance. But it is so difficult to be balanced when the world demands us to go our our extremes, driven by the amplification effects of social media.

All machines need to be stopped and calibrated every now and then so that they operate within their expected range of tolerances. Our bodies and minds are the same. That is why we need sleep and breaks. But that alone is not sufficient. Sometimes our natural sense of balance is lost. That is why proactive maintenance is required to restore that balance.

Meditation is a means of maintaining one's mental balance. By simply observing the mind and the thoughts that arise, one learns to know one's current mental state and 'balancing thoughts' can be introduced, which would restore its equilibrium. All the meditation techniques that are in existence today, use some object of concentration, like the breath, a sound or a feeling (lovingkindness) to help us reduce the agitations of the mind so that it operates in a streamlined mode. When all perturbations are quelled, interesting qualities of the mind emerge.

A healthy mind always knows its datum or base of equilibrium. Whenever experience veers it out of its equilibrium, balancing mechanisms kick in to restore it to its equilibrium state. The mind trained in meditation acquires the habit of doing so. Meditation or mindfulness is one of the many ways of handling depression.

Meditation is a deliberate act of calibration which, helps to maintain the mind on a steady course. The challenge of meditation is that it requires an act of will on the part of the practitioner. This willpower does not come easy when one's mind is already in a state of turmoil.

When a single mind loses course, the community of minds--friends, family and mental health professionals--have to assist to restore order. We live in a matrix of minds which could either support or obliterate us. Let us strengthen the bonds that hold the matrix together. And that's the least that we could do.

A World of Words

It has become my Saturday afternoon routine to park myself at a cafe and blog. I'll have a simple Americano and some croissant or bagel for lunch. Occasionally I'll even have some pasta. Today, I'm having my favourite cranberry salad. Lunch is optional for me. But on a weekend, I'll try to indulge myself a little bit.

I don't know what I'm going to write today. I have some serious topics that I have been thinking about over the past week but I'll save them for another time. I want to relax today. To relax with words coming out spontaneously from my mind--which also means I'll be rambling in a stream-of-consciousness kind of way.

I am thinking of having some beers after this. Do I have any qualms drinking alone? Not at all. I enjoy the company and camaraderie of friends but there's also pleasure in being alone at the bar, slowly nursing a cool beer on a hot afternoon. Sometimes you strike up interesting conversations with strangers; other times you are just grateful that you have a chance to be by yourself, reflecting on things that cross your mind. If the light is good, I might be inclined to read too, and perhaps even pen a few words in my journal.

It is also fun observing people; people who are going about doing what people do--satisfying their craving for things and experiences, courting, procreating or working towards the goal of procreation. People struggling with fear and loneliness; people trying to maximise pleasure and happiness; people trying to be people, living perpetually unsatisfactory lives.

The rich and the poor mired in their petty concerns. The rich, always insecure in their perceived insufficient wealth, worshipping those above and trampling those below, feeling unrecognised for what they have achieved and trying at every moment to trumpet them to the world. The poor, defiant of their circumstance, overcoming their sense of inadequacy, wallowing in victimhood or clawing with vengeance to stake their claim in an uncaring world.

 Is the world cruel? No, it is just indifferent. The rocks have nothing against the crashing torrents of the river. The world bewitches us with its many allures and dampens our naive enthusiasms by repeatedly breaking our hearts. We have grandiose projects of bringing forth beautiful children who will make the world a better place. But your so-called 'better place' is not always congruent with theirs. 

And here in this cafe, we sip our lattes and tap and flick our smartphones, smiling at another stupid meme, texting our longings to another uncaring soul, lip-servicing social friends, whiling time away--enjoying life. 

This moment, once experienced, once expressed will never come again. It is gone, the moment it is tasted. Life is beautiful because it is ephemeral. We cling to snapshots of experiences in our memory and call that our lives. No, life is not your memory of who you are, nor is it what you are going to be. Life is. Life is this word that I am typing now. This one. and this one. And life goes on, because I have not run out of words. 

I will continue typing these words, because I can only live through words. In this world of words, every word expressed is a an act of creation. Every word consumes energy. And when word ceases, so does life. Didn't some religious tome say that in the beginning was the Word, and that's how everything began?

An Exposition on Explosions and Implosions

I had lunch with Myra at Centrepoint and advised her to use her energy wisely. She has so much talent, potential and self-confidence. My only fear for her is that she is like some combustable fuel prone to exploding and burning uncontrollably. 

All that energy has be harnessed carefully; let the explosion happen in a controlled manner in a piston chamber. She needs to be an engine. An engine is a man-made structure for harnessing the power latent in fuel.

In the news today is something sad: they finally found the debris of the submersible vehicle, Titan which had been lost for the past 5 days in the ocean near the wreckage of the Titanic. Apparently there was an implosion, which had instantaneously killed its 5 passengers. It had crushed like a beer can.

Life is fragile. We could explode from the youthful recklessness or implode from the pressures of society. How we use our energy and strengthen our physical and emotional structure is important in preventing an catastrophic failures due to explosions or implosions.

When we are young, we are full of idealism. We want to protest against every perceived injustice. We want to fight enemies and conquer new territories. We want to experience life to the fullest. We are born to express and experience and in that experiencing, we strengthen our mental and physical frame, making us wiser and more resilient.

Life is a game of navigation between extremes. We strive to find the right balance between safety and danger. How much risk should we take in life? Too little risk means very little gain and not stretching oneself enough. But how far should we go? Pain is a good gauge.  We stretch until we start feeling some pain and then we stop. Without sufficient stress and strain, the structure doesn't change. Too much of it could cause the structure to give way.

Balance is often boring. It reeks of mediocrity. Caution is like a curse. We like to worship individuals who are willing to take great risks and applaud them when they succeed. Heroes who scale dizzying heights and dive to great depths. When they do not explode or implode, they are celebrated.  

I've come to appreciate the steadily burning candle flame, not the exploding fireworks, which our culture so adores. I have an aromatic candle burning now in front of me as I type these words. It burns at the right pace, using up just the right amount of wax to release its lavender fragrance into my apartment. 

I guess I'm through with all the explosions and implosions of life. Nowadays, I'm happy being that candle, burning slowly, illuminating some small corner of the universe.

Being and Feelings

While I was walking up from the carpark of the Da Men Mall just now, I thought I would write about "being" and "feeling". That I think would be the title of the blog article (I often don't know what the title is until I've written the last line). But today will be different. 

We all know what makes us unhappy. We say that we 'feel' sad. Maybe someone you love died. Or you lost your job, had a car accident or having a misunderstanding with your spouse. These things bother us and make us feel miserable. But we also know that, every unhappy state passes. It is a 'feeling' that comes and goes. All feelings fade away naturally unless you purposely rekindle them.

Feelings are by definition ephemeral--like clouds in the sky. They will drift in and drift out. People who are in depression are however in a slightly different state. They are stuck in a rut--like a buggy computer program that ran into an infinite loop. But even then, depressions don't last forever--either because the body that's suffering from it gives way or changes in circumstances alter the body chemistry enabling the person to snap out of the depressive state.

Depression is just a runaway feedback cycle of reinforcing negativity that plunges a person into a perpetually unhappy state. This overpowering storm of negative feelings has to be disrupted, either by a change of environment or a chemical intervention that changes the neurophysiology of the person.

By and large, feelings come and go. It is a content of the body and mind. The problem with sadness is that, we are sometimes addicted to this negative content because it distracts us from other deeper issues. But we are not the contents of our minds. We are that awareness behind it, which is untainted by feelings or contents.

That awareness is Being itself. Being is not the body nor the mind--these are just physical manifestations of our existence. It is the underlying field where the perturbations happen. Whenever they are perturbations, we 'feel' it--as happiness or sadness. The field of Being does not comprehend the drama of feelings--it merely provides the stage for the play to happen.

But Being is who we really are. Even the concept of 'I' or 'We' needs to be understood in its proper perspective. It only has relative and local significance. Each one of us is simply a tiny group of fluctuations in the field of Being, which cumulatively has a kind of shared life-cycle. Just like how a whirlpools seem to have a force of its own, sucking in everything that comes into its vicinity. But a whirlpool is just a part of the larger body of water called the ocean. 

Our soul-proud selves are nothing but whirlpools in the field of Being. Sometimes it is convenient to talk about our individual souls and personalities, very much like how we illustrate software architecture with block diagrams. It is a conceptual representation of reality, which has its purpose at the level of abstraction that we are operating.

Feeling is form and Being is emptiness. Form disappears into emptiness and vice versa, as the famous sutra goes. When expressed in that kind of mystical language, people find it difficult to grasp and comes up with all sorts of interpretations that miss the mark. 

All spiritual practices attempt to reconnect us to our fundamental Being--that "oneness with God". But again, the moment we express it that way, we are creating subject-object duality--I and God. The best approach is not to talk and argue too much about such things. All arguments, thoughts and expressions only generate feelings. Just be. And that, is the ultimate bliss of Being.

Treading Towards Truth

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken. 

- Oliver Cromwell 

Today I'm typing these lines at Zus Coffee, Putra Heights. The hot news these past 2 days have been the indictment of former President Donald Trump related to his mishandling of confidential government documents. As always with anything related to Donald Trump, social media is split into two camps: the right believes that it's a conspiracy against the former president and the left who thinks that action against him is long overdue.

It is also a reflection on the state of our social media today. Everyone lives in their own partisan bubbles. No one reads news that is fair and balanced. Come to think of it, is there a news organisation that's fair and balanced? Well, to a certain extent, some are. Or at least they try. But new organisations are run by humans who naturally have their biases.

I'm of the belief that our political leaning is influenced by personality trait.  It is by and large determine by our genes. We think that we are guided by reason, but that's just an illusion. We have subconscious fears and inclinations that guide most of our decisions, especially when it comes to choosing political candidates in an election. We justify our subconscious choices by offering 'reason' as to why we support a certain candidate. 

In many social and political issues, there's often no clear-cut answer, unlike what you'd expect from a solvable mathematical problem. Unfortunately we delude ourselves into thinking there's such a thing as a right answer. Issues like abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment are ethical issues which do not have a definitive answer. We decide when it is right for society to kill off another individual, or a potential human being (like an embryo) and stick to it. Society often decides what is palatable, based on the zeitgeist.

Are all ethical considerations relative then?  Is there such a thing as  absolute truth?  If we grasp the entire workings of the universe all at once, the answer is yes. But we don't. So at any point in time, we are just using our best guess, based on our human wisdom, which is limited by space and time. 

Some of our society norms and laws could be wrong and misguided. But it's the best that we could do, at this stage of human evolution. Throughout human history, humans have latched on to certain ideas and beliefs, thinking that they are the absolute truth and then fight wars against fellow human beings with the belief that they are good and the other side is evil. 

"I am right and you are wrong", is by definition divisive. But it is what the human mind likes: true or false, ones and zeros. Without such certainty, we do not know how to act. All deliberations have to end with an action. If we are only 51% sure, we will round it up to 100% and proceed.

We take each step forward with an optimistic confidence based on our best guess. But at the same time we have to realise that we are always treading on thin ice. The next step could be a catastrophically wrong one, and if we do not tread lightly, we could fall into an icy abyss.

There's no such thing as absolute certainty. In an episode of the Ascent of Man, which I watched when I was a teenager, and had to this day remained fresh in my mind, the scientist Jacob Bronowski stood in a pond where the ashes of the crematorium of Auschwitz were flushed into, and said: 

"When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods."

Scientists do aspire to the knowledge of gods, but a good scientist also understands that science, in Bronowski's words again "is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible". And "we must cure ourselves of the itch of absolute knowledge and power".

Truth is a direction we are always aiming for. But know that, it is something we can never grasp with absolute certainty. So tread forward confidently, but ever so lightly.

All for Acceptance

I'm back in my hometown today, typing these lines on a sultry afternoon. It's the hottest time of the year now and people are complaining a lot about the heat wave.  I'm quite alright with the heat, as long as there's enough ventilation. The airiness of my house here makes the heat bearable.

I realised that most of us modern folks have become accustomed to air-conditioning.  I grew up without  such comforts and so remember a what it was like then. I dislike the thought of us getting soft and over-pampered by the conveniences of modern life. So I try not to over-indulge.

Which is why I do not sleep with the air-conditioner on.  If you are tired enough--I often am on most nights--you'll fall asleep the moment you lie on your bed.  Most people do not like the sticky discomfort of sweat; but I'm alright with it. If you learn to embrace sweat as something that's natural and even good for you, you'll get used to it. 

Acceptance of what is, is key here. It is a skill that one can cultivate. Acknowledge the discomfort of heat. It's just a sensation on the body, like any other sensation. It causes you to sweat. It distracts you from work. But remember that one gets distracted because one allows oneself to be annoyed by what is.

Acceptance does not mean being submissive. There's nothing personal about weather; so there's no question of fighting it. Weather is a mutable phenomenon and one must align one's mind and body to it. 

When we cocoon ourselves in the coolness of an air-conditioned room, we are trying to reshape nature to our liking. That is the genesis of life itself--defining and separating an internal state from the vicissitudes of external forces. A constant supply of energy is required to maintain this state of dis-equilibrium. 

Acceptance means adapting to changes in the environment so that the optimum amount of energy is required to maintain one's state. The whole of life is the preservation of state--the grasping of things, the pushing away of annoyances, the elevation of pride and self-importance. That comes with a price. But do your accounting wisely, so that there's no unnecessary wastage.

Does fighting the heat enhances our productivity? If it does, pay for it. Turn on the air-conditioner so that you can work better. Does the heat bother you that much when you are sleeping? Perhaps. For some like me, it's no matter. I sleep just as well and wake up just as refreshed as anyone else. Acceptance makes one sleep very soundly indeed and I'm all for it.

The Entropy Casino

Today I'm blogging from a pub on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Yesterday I was on leave, but there was a company function which I had to participate. But it was fun, getting to banter with my colleagues whom I rarely get to meet.

Re-reading my blog post last week makes me smile, because I realised that I've not changed all these years. I've never been a practical person when it comes to pursuing a corporate career. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just not my cup of tea.

But I've made good friends throughout my years of dalliance with the IT industry. Corporations will always give the appearance that they 'care' for their employees. But a corporation is not a tangible thing. Everyone is an employee. There's no such thing as loyalty to the company, except to your friends whom you've built a relationship with. The real company is your network of friends and acquaintances which you've forged a relationship with and carry throughout your career in the industry.

Corporations are just capitalist structures for maximising profits for shareholders. That's their main concern and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm all for capitalism, because greed, is the only electromotive force that moves humans. Greed is just a cynical way of saying human needs. As Gordon Gekko famously expounded in my favourite movie Wall Street, it has "marked the upward surge of mankind".

To live is to crave for things. But is that bad? No.

Just that, if you understand the roots of craving, you'll spare yourself a lot of unexpected pain. I say 'unexpected' because pain is inevitable every time we express a need. It is just unwise to be caught by surprise, as you suffer more as a result. Pain needs to be factored in for every need for pleasure.

Losing money is painful. But one needs to be aware of such a risk when going into business. A wise businessman would have quantified and considered all its implications; and having taken all that into consideration, makes a calculated risk to plunge ahead. The success or failure of his enterprise would depend on both ability and luck. 

To live is to take calculated risks.  No risk, no gain as they say. It is just wise to test one's tolerance to the amount of pain that one could be risking oneself to, before forging ahead. There's only so much that one could plan, in any human endeavour. You move ahead with what's reasonable. You'll still be taken by surprise by circumstances which you did not foresee. But factoring in the unforeseen is also part of the risk calculus.

If we shy away from pain, we'll never live. To be born into this mortal frame is to be subjected to pain. Your nervous system is created to sense both pain and pleasure in equal measure. It is only our delusion that makes us believe that the pursuit of the latter means an obliteration of the former.

To avoid pain, is to deny life itself. One might as well not to have been born.  When you suffer pain, do not take it personally; it is just nature's way of doing accounting. The quest for pleasure necessitates the production of pain. The house always wins in the entropy casino.

And we being pleasure-seekers must always be prepared to pay its price. As my dear departed friend, YL, who was an avid gambler, told me: whenever one goes to the casino, one must be aware that one is going to lose money; but that's alright as one is simply buying the excitement.

The enlightened gambler knows that. That way, you have quantified your suffering in dollars and cents. In a way, that's the best price to pay.

Work Advice from a Non-Careerist

For this month, I've decided to take every Friday off. It's great to work 4 days a week and leave a day for blogging and running errands. I work hard but I don't take work too seriously. I can afford to do so because I don't see what I do as a career.

The career-minded professional has an upwardly-mobile outlook. I've never had a knack for that sort of thing, for my true interests always lie elsewhere. I've always wondered too, if I had decided to become a scientist (one of my many childhood ambitions), would I be a more fulfilled and contented person?

Well, I guess it is unlikely because, every job is kind of a career. A scientist has to get papers published and in an academic environment, it would literally be a paper-chase as academics are chiefly measured by their publications. Promotion opportunities are based on that for they are the easiest and most convenient measure of an academic's 'achievements'.   

I studied engineering chiefly because I liked science, not necessarily technology. Technology is an application of science, which in itself is not uninteresting, and I suppose a good compromise. As a kid, I loved building things, so it is not surprising that I ended up an engineer.  But then again, I was interested in many other things as a kid--I loved history, literature and art too. Would a career as a designer or a journalist been more rewarding for me?

But I doubt if any single career would have been a better choice. I have a naturally inclination not to be boxed into any kind of specialisation. I am interested in a wide a variety of subjects, and that's an instinct in me as natural as anyone would have in their choice of food. I guess, the mind yearns for a kind of balanced diet of intellectual pursuits.

Every subject provides some kind of nutrient that's important for one's intellectual growth.  Career-wise, that makes me a jack-of-all trades and a master of none. But I'm comfortable with that. Even in the area of IT from which I eke out my living, I have ended up performing many different roles throughout my career. By not being a specialist, I am also not an expert of anything. The advantage of that is that, you have a broader perspective of things; you rely on generic principles and common sense to get things done. 

In the field of technology, things get obsolete very fast. When you acquire knowledge of any software or framework, it is important to know how to distill its general principles. These principles will stand you in good stead through the vicissitudes of technological progress. 

I guess, I am happy being a non-careerist. It makes me enjoy my work more because I do it for 'fun'.  The reward of work is work itself--just like the performance of a religious ritual. When approached that way, work becomes a form of spiritual practice and its rewards go beyond the mere material.

The Farm of Dead Trees

My new bookshelves are done and promptly installed by the contractor in my apartment. It has been tough replacing my wall-to-wall shelves that had been ruined by rain-water leakage. I'm wiser now about the design of these shelves: I now leave a buffer zone between ceiling and shelf. 

High humidity and sunlight are books' greatest enemies. I'll have to make sure that my books are better protected this time. Yesterday, I gave my shelves a good wipe before I plan how and what books go back to them. I'm going to plan carefully this time. I'm going to install hygrometers to monitor the humidity levels better, and perhaps keep a dehumidifier running.

Since my library is the embodiment of my brain and mind, this is my opportunity to reorganise all the books so that whenever I think deeply about any subject, I can visualise the relevant books in 3D on my bookshelves. I believe if I sort out my physical books properly, my thinking will become clearer too. 

Almost every one of my books has a date of purchase scrawled on the title page. Nowadays I also jot down the dates when I started and finished reading them on the back page. And if you flip though the books in my library, you'll find cafe receipts, Post-It notes and other bits of memento associated with the time and place, casually inserted into their pages. Every book in my library has been lived through and has become a part my of my life. My library is the intellectual history of my life.

By perusing every book in my possession and putting them back on the shelves, I can recall why I had bought each book in first place and if I'd read it, what memory of its contents do I still carry in my head? And if the book happens to be still unread--often because it was too difficult for my comprehension then--am I able to see its relevance now?

It gladdens me greatly whenever I find a book which I had thought difficult, now revealing itself lucidly to me. It means that my mind has matured and the intellectual soil is finally ready for these impenetrable seeds to take root and grow.

Growth and learning is the reward of reading. I live for insights and epiphanies that come from books--each discovery,  a mini orgasm of the mind. Books make me happy and I do not make any apologies for preferring their company to idle socialising, which now happens anyway over the vanity fair of social media.

I wrote before in an old blog post that I see people as "interactive books". Socialising to me is a form of 'reading'. Each person is a walking book of knowledge and when we interact, we are enriching each other's lives through the sharing of our individual experiences. And the marvellous thing about it is that, our interaction is like an act of writing: we are all writing a collective book, which belongs to all of us.

If we do not read, our social pool is limited only to the living; we are not fraternising with the great minds who had come and gone before us. Reading greatly enlarges our social circle, to include the dead. 

It does sound a bit morbid when I put it that way, but your personal library is your social network of the dead. You need the wisdom of both the living and the dead to lead a fulfilling life. So I read, for dead people continue to talk through the dead trees. And long may they proliferate in this farm of mine--this highly personal library filled with the voices of the dead.

The Mindless Mobs of Social Media

It's the end of another work week and it's been a rather quiet one because of the two public holidays - 1st and 4th of May, Labour Day and Vesak Day, respectively. Usually I'd be quite exhausted on a Friday evening (it's already past midnight, so it's Saturday morning), but today I still have a bit of wind left to carry me through this blog post.

It's amazing how much time people spend on their phones these days. I've long realised, even during the Yahoo chat days on the internet, that texting is very time consuming. So I rarely engage in any of the many WhatsApp groups that I belong to. I treat WhatsApp like email: I check my messages periodically over the course of the day, only when I'm taking a break in between tasks.  And I am certainly glad that I'm not hooked on Tik Tok, Instagram or Tweeter. I've long given up on Facebook too. These are all destroyers of one's time.

I do listen to a lot of podcasts and have many favourite Youtube channels that I watch. But I make sure that I control the time when these activities take place. I usually indulge in them when I'm doing physical chores like house-keeping, bathing or driving. The good thing about repetitive physical work is that it frees your mind to do something else. Hence audiobooks and podcasts are to me the best things that comes of out of technology over the last decade.

One could ask: what's wrong with entertaining ourselves watching Tik Tok videos and texting endlessly over WhatsApp? Isn't that a way of socialising, an activity which, arguably defines what being human is? Don't sharing and enjoying the company of fellow humans make a fulfilling life?

Well, I use work for that purpose. I spend the greater part of the day communicating with people on work-related matters. But I like to mix business with pleasure--not in an unprofessional way though. What I mean is: fun. Why can't work be fun and sociable?

We lament the fact that so much of our time is being tied up with work. If that is the case, why not make the best of it. Every work interaction is also a social one, where one gets to learn and share with fellow colleagues, clients and partners. The problem with so much of our corporate culture is that we treat business as a kind of war with our competitors. Even your co-workers are in competition with you over promotion or recognition. Why should that be so? It is such an unhealthy paradigm.

If work and business is a kind of competition, let it be a sport, where one gets to enjoy the good fight but at the end of the day, whoever wins, everyone had given their best and had had a good time. This is the best kind of socialising--not gossiping about people or politicians we dislike. There's way too much hatred in social media that it has turned into a network of hateful mobs. Not only does it suck up your time, it also destroys your mind.

Hatred, surprisingly forges strong bonds as much as love. You do not need to love the fellow members of your social group, it's enough that everyone hates the same thing. A common hatred makes a mighty mob. 

A mob makes everyone lose their individuality. We do not think anymore; our minds are subsumed and consumed by an overpowering outrage. When we are alone, we are forced to think on our own feet but when we are in a mob, we only sense what the people around us are doing and follow their cue--like flocks of birds flying in close formation, swerving across the sky in perfect synchrony. There is no leader in such a flock--each bird is simply adjusting its movement based on slight changes in its immediate surrounding.

We are individuals, not mobs. We have minds, which, admittedly we need to transcend through meditation,  but not by surrendering them to a mob.  We feel strong by being part of a mob because we have surrendered thinking, which is the cause of so much of our existential fears. The mob is mindless and fearless but that is degeneration rather than enlightenment. So let's strengthen our resolve to be mindful at all times, lest we fall to the seductive embrace of the social mob. 

A Museum of Memories

I'm writing this at one of my favourite Coffee Bean hangouts. It's surprisingly quiet at lunch time and I'm happy to be able to find a small table to set up my laptop for this weekly session of writing and reflection. It's coming to the end of April; I've already filed my taxes and now planning the refurbishment of my apartment. 

I've had my apartment for around 20 years now but I've never ever spent a single night there. I use it mainly as an occasional home office, library and store-room for the junk that I've collected over the years. Even though I try to be more of a minimalist these days, things have a tendency to accumulate--especially all my old electronics.

The other day I resurrected my old Denon amplifier which I had chucked away somewhere with all the other kitsch and wreckages of my wandering life. I was surprised that it was still working despite being subjected to the heat and humidity of my storeroom for more than a decade. I also found an old portable Technics CD player which I managed to hook up to the amp. Suddenly my entire CD collection came back to life bringing back sweet nostalgic memories of the past.

One day, I will also resurrect my dad's turn-table which has been lying untouched back in my hometown. I still have a small collection of vinyl records there. Every one of them will unlock memories of the many happy hours of my childhood admiring the art on the album covers, poring over the song lyrics or blurbs which are usually printed within their folds while listening to warm strains that wafted from the speaker.

I get my music from Spotify these days and it has been great being able to call up any classical piece that I wish to listen to with a mere tap of my fingers on the phone. But there's a certain indescribable pleasure one gets by dropping a piece of CD or vinyl record onto a rotating plate and voila, beautiful  music suddenly appears.

I realised that my entire life is encapsulated in these objects that I own--my CDs, DVDs, video cassettes, books and magazines that lie everywhere in my apartment. I've neglected them for far too long. I'm going to dust, clean and rearrange them properly. Repair anything that's damaged and discard any unnecessary clutter. 

Maybe I still have too many attachments to these things. I'm also aware that if I'm not ready to give or throw them away, there's still some unresolved karma that I have associated with them. By going through them again, I am reexamining their significance in my life, and perhaps in the process of doing that, I'll understand why they have a hold on me still. 

The things you've accumulated is the history of your life and there's often much we can learn from history. It is in this spirit that I'm slowly transforming my apartment into my personal museum of memories.

Being Omnijective

It's only Thursday night but I'm already writing my blog article of the week. There's a long weekend coming up because of the Hari Raya Puasa holidays. The massive balik kampung exodus has already begun. There'll be much gaiety and celebrations all over the country, while I am looking forward to enjoy a less crowded city over the weekend. 

I was watching the SpaceX test flight launch of their most power rocket ever.  Space exploration is one of the most exciting things that the human species have pursued.  I applaud Elon Musk for having the courage to start up SpaceX and bringing it to the forefront of space exploration.  Only when we enter space, do we get a sense of how fragile and vulnerable we are in the immensity of the cosmos. 

The world will be a less quarrelsome place If only more of us care to lift our sights up and gaze into the night sky. We--every sentient being on earth-- are part of a single organism, Gaia. If we know how to shift our consciousness from an ego-centric perspective to one that encompasses the entire world, we would have made a baby step towards becoming a cosmic citizen.

We humans celebrate patriotism. It's well good that we all have some kind of allegiance towards our own family, tribe, company, state or country.  But again, these are progressive steps towards the extinction of the ego. A man who cares for his family learns to set aside his own selfish needs for that of his family. There's always a tension between need of the individual and that of the group. Family life is the first opportunity for us to learn to be altruistic.  

The universe is constantly pushing us outwards--to let go, albeit slowly, so that we may shift our focus towards embracing a larger whole. Ultimately, if the universe has a mind, we are part of it. It is foolish of us to be trapped in our parochialism and not being able to see the pantheistic nature of our existence. 

We get into endless arguments about the existence of God and its nature. What makes us think that these are even reasonable questions? We create issues by formulating questions in the only way we know, using human languages that had been shaped by our very limited human experiences. Is it any wonder that we assume God to be some kind of idealised alpha male leader, to be feted and feared?

We function in our lives as individuals, interacting with other individuals. Hence we conceptualise individuals, as 'souls', that has some kind of identity and reality, with a unique story arc. Every one is trying to achieve something or go somewhere. What makes us think that our 'identity', like a rivulet of water flowing between the crevices of rocks, has any importance in the cosmic scheme of things? 

The moment we speak, we are dividing the world into subject and object. When we are tired of arguing about the relationship between the subject and the object, perhaps we could all learn to just be. Being. For we are all processes that are part of a larger process that is part of a complex network of processes. To put it simply, the world is omnijective.

A Markov Chain of Ideas

This blank page has no soul. But when I put these words on it, it springs to life. It talks to you--yes you, dear reader. Suddenly I am here and you are there and there's this conversation flowing between us.

How remarkably wonderful is that? How did it arise, this illusion of a person here talking to you in your head? It is simply the miracle of reading and writing--skills which were not passed down by our genes but acquired, painstakingly through years of training. 

But I'm not going to write about these skills today, which Maryanne Wolf did a good job in expounding in Proust and the Squid. I gained a much better understanding of dyslexia from the book, which makes me feel appreciative of the reading skill that I have. And that gratitude is felt every time I open a book to read, allowing that miracle of images and sound to appear in my head.

From black marks on a blank page to beautiful vistas and dramatic speeches require  the brain to integrate processing from many its different regions. Neural connections are forged during those years of learning, allowing the mere sight of a line of Wordsworth to bring back the sunshine and trees of my childhood.

When I write these words, I trigger something in you. But where do I end and you begin? If you meet me in a cafe, I am a person, sitting at a table in the corner with a pot of Earl Grey, typing on a laptop. You could be sitting at another table across and there's a clear boundary between us. I am here and you are there. 

But when you are reading what I write, we are one. My thoughts and yours mingle. Something new arises in your brain; if you and I are in the same cafe, we could sit together and have a conversation. As a monk once told me: the teacher and the student creates the teaching. When to persons exchange thoughts, they are also creating something from the synthesis of ideas. For a moment, we share a collective brain. And when we end our conversation, we are better off because new neural connections would have sprouted in each of our brains.

A relationship is an emergent property, created from the interplay of thoughts between individuals. The writer and reader has a relationship. Right now, I write as if there's a reader. There could be none. But that doesn't matter. The whole point of writing is to put your brain into a communication mode. By writing to an imaginary reader, I set up the dynamic for the act of creation to happen. In the process, I am changed. Thoughts fall into place, because I am forced to convey them clearly to others.

I end each session of writing with insight and gratitude. Insight from the labour of shaping of words into ideas and I am better off because of it. The next article in this blog will be influenced by what I write today--it is simply a growing Markov chain of ideas and long may it continue!

Language of the Heart

I am happy to be able to start blogging on Friday night itself, even though it is a full work week for me. Sometimes I work until midnight, even on Fridays. But today, I'm taking it easy because there's nothing that demands my immediate attention at the moment. Anyway, it is also Good Friday, and perhaps a good time to reflect on Jesus's life and his teachings.

I have to admit that I am a fan of Jesus Christ. But why am I not a Christian?  That's because I'm not a follower of any organised religion, preferring not to be restricted by the rules, restrictions and rituals that come by commiting to a single one. No single religion has a monopoly of wisdom; each has its own strengths and weaknesses. The religion you choose is a matter of taste, not truth. I think I've mentioned that in another blog post before.

Why am I a fan of the Anointed One? For one, he had the spirit of a rebel. He challenged the religious authorities of his time and spread a message of love and egalitarianism. I have the hippy instinct in me, so I can certainly identify with that. 

We cannot be absolutely sure what were the original teachings of this self-styled prophet who in the end, died a shocking death on the cross, driving his followers then into hiding. Jesus could have been one of many of the wandering preachers in Palestine who had come and gone before, forgotten by history. In the years after his crucifixion (which Good Friday today commemorates), this scandalous rabbi who had dared to claim himself the "Son of God" looked like he would have followed the same fate.

But somehow his message of loving thy enemy and the promise of salvation, which Nietzsche branded as 'slave morality', found resonance among the downtrodden and became an underground movement. It would still have fizzled out if not for Emperor Constantine who, inspired by a vision of the cross he saw on the battlefield, made Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire.

Love is powerful. Love is the language of the heart. A true Christian is overflowing with selfless love. That was what drove the church to the far corners of the world, healing the sick and helping the poor. But in their over-zealousness, they also decimated the culture and beliefs of the natives--so-called heathens.

I am not so taken by the eschatology and soteriology of Christianity--two big words that mean the doctrine of the end-of-times where the Messiah and the Kingdom of Heaven will reign again and how believers can achieve salvation through belief in Christ. These are the boring aspects of religion to me. What interests me is love, repentance and forgiveness themselves. Whether these bring salvation in the end is not important to me.

"Agape" is the Greek word used to express this selfless love of Christianity, that is different from other less noble forms of love such as the romantic "eros" and "philia", which is brotherly love. If one learns to love one's neighbours and forgives one's enemies, one is expressing this agape form of love well. It is bakti and karma yoga rolled in one. Its diligent practice helps to extinguish the ego in oneself and it is a good path for someone who is more attuned to the language of the heart to follow.

So on a good Friday like this, let's all reflect on agape, and how much love in all its forms has shaped the history of humanity on this earth. We humans are both creatures of the head and of the heart. When one's heart is big, one immediately understands its language, which is love itself. If one chooses to listen to the heart, that love that speaks from within, untainted by the ego, is the voice of agape.