Consciousness Considered

Today, because I'm on leave, I'm back to my usual pot of Earl Grey routine here in my study, listening to Chopin and staring out into the green foliage outside my window and the dull grey skies in the distant, which seem to forebode rain and thunderstorms later. 

Maybe today we'll discuss a bit about consciousness. This is a favourite topic among philosophers and people with religious beliefs. There are a lot of terms related to consciousness, some used synonymically with it like 'mind', 'soul' and 'self'. Each of these terms gives a slightly different nuance to the meaning.

Actually what do we even mean by consciousness? American philosopher Thomas Nagel in his famous paper "What is it like to be a Bat", perhaps gave the simplest articulation of it by stating "an organism has conscious mental states if there's something that is like to be that organism--something it is like for the organism.".

We all know what it is like to be ourselves. It's the feeling you are conscious of right now while you are reading these words, comprehending, wondering, comparing, objecting or agreeing with what I'm saying. And we take it for granted that other people feel something like that too, when they are sane and awake. "The lights are on", as Sam Harris like to say.

This first-person 'feeling', do other organisms, say a bat with vastly a different neurophysiology, have it too? I know what it feels like to be me but what is it like if I were a bat?  We could argue that we need something complex like a brain to be conscious. Could consciousness be an 'emergent' property of complex systems, like an ant or termite colony which is capable of behaving 'intelligently' as a group?

As it is today, it is safe to say, no one knows. Consciousness is the ultimate mystery, partly because we are using consciousness to investigate consciousness. This is why philosopher David Chalmers calls it the "hard problem of consciousness" as opposed to the 'easier' problem of just investigating the physical brain and its processes which generate so-called consciousness. 

This is the age old mind-body problem--that eternal Cartesian division between the immaterial and the material properties of our existence. "I think therefore I am"--Descartes's famous dictum asserting that the only thing that we can be sure of is that we are thinking, therefore at least that is real. The rest is up for grabs. 

That resulted in all the different schools of thoughts we have today--dualists who think that mind and matter are two distinct substances or monists, which are either idealists who believe that the entire universe is a projection of consciousness or materialists who believe that matter is all there is. And there are those who try to marry the two like the panpsychists, who speculate that perhaps consciousness could be a fundamental ingredient of all matter. 

Religious and mystically-inclined people do not like the materialist view because it lacks that magical substance called 'soul' that defines who we are. Certainly we are not the same as stones and trees. We have a soul that lives on after the material body has disintegrated. But then, there are animists among many primitive tribes who believe that even stones and trees have immaterial spirits and are 'alive'.

Can AI be conscious, if not already? LLMs today already can converse like humans and would arguably pass any Turing test, if not now, in the near future. If they cannot be distinguished from humans, are they not at least the proverbial philosophical zombie who is capable of behaving exactly like any one of us? 

Philosophers use the philosophical zombie thought experiment to argue against the materialist view of consciousness.  There are others who think that consciousness is a false problem, similar to the definition of life. We used to believe in some kind of elan vital substance or 'life force' that differentiates between living and non-living beings. Now we can see many organisms like viruses that are hard to be lumped into either category. Why can't life or consciousness lie on a continuum? 

Could consciousness be a measurable quantity of complex systems? Scientists who believe that have come up with Integrated Information Theory or IIT which defines a mathematical quantity based on the amount of 'integrated information' in a system, measuring how 'conscious' a system is.

Personally, I am open to all ideas. I think there may not be an answer that satisfies us simply because we are computationally-bounded observers based on Stephen Wolfram's theory of a computational universe.  We only perceive things that matter to us and are limited in the way we comprehend the universe. 

I am happy simply typing these words, thinking, speculating and observing. In other words, just being me: Conscious.

A Remembrance of Rosebud

Today I'm writing from a pub, having a beer in the afternoon, instead of my usual Americano or Earl Grey.  On the large projection screen in front of me, they are showing a live telecast of badminton matches from the Australian Open. 

I used to play a lot of badminton during my school days but I found that I was better at soccer and table tennis. Me and my buddies would scour the entire town for available badminton courts: in public parks, kampungs and schools--anywhere that we could string our net, without raising an ire. 

We liked to play early in the morning, sacrificing sleep. And because all the courts were outdoors, wind was always a major disrupter. But the cool and the stillness of morning air was just perfect for badminton.

We usually played doubles because that was the only way to ensure everyone got a chance to play. I also preferred the more fast-paced doubles game. Childhood and teenage years were a lot of fun; friends everywhere within cycling distance. Every year-end school holiday was a month-long outdoor carnival of games and adventures.

Perhaps the opportunity to grow up like that is forever gone now: a childhood untainted by television, video games and social media.  Those halcyon days of innocence and wonder; of excursions into the jungle, of getting ourselves lost deep in a maze of rubber trees, of climbing guava trees and chomping on its delightful bounty, of rapturous hide-and-seek games under the moonlight, shrieking with our childish delight to the annoyance of neighbours.

I always feel that it is a blessing to have that core of innocence, or at least its memory, in the depths of my soul. My days now are spent in front of multiple computer screens, solving issues far removed from anything in nature--lambda functions, automatic scaling groups, api keys and HTTP headers. The replicants in Blade Runner cling on to their implanted memories as a kind of proof of their humanity. Who can forget Rutger Hauer's now iconic dying scene in the movie, where he uttered these immortal lines:

“I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain"

If such a thing as a soul exists, I know at its core, it is infused with our cherished childhood experiences.   Everything we later experience as adults is tinged with its mood and colour. They anchor us and re-orientate us whenever we are lost. 

If we lose the child within,  it is akin to losing our souls. I also see the evocations of childhood wonder in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's opening line of One Hundred Years of Solitude, which makes it the most poignant opening of any novel that I've read:

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

I too remember many distant afternoons, full of joy and innocence when I discovered a world full of intriguing mysteries and promises.

I'm not sure why I feel a sudden nostalgia for my childhood here in this stifling pub, filled with techno-music blaring in the background. But it is strangely comforting to be able to reconnect with it. The sight of Lee Zii Jia playing badminton was a Proustian moment that had triggered these memories. 

My childhood, real and imagined, all the books that I had read and the movies that had made deep impressions on me, they all defined who I am, and my path ahead.

No, I'm not facing any existential crisis like those replicants of Blade Runner or Colonel Aureliano Buendia, but I see memory as something that's critical to our identity, the catalyst for the unrelenting pursuits of adulthood.  And like Citizen Kane in the acclaimed Orson Wells movie, perhaps, deep down inside, we all have our own personal Rosebuds.

The Ultimate Music

I often find myself returning to the topic of religion in my blog. I've written so much about it that every time I'm motivated to express my view on the subject, I have to search through my blog to make sure that I'm not repeating the same thing again. And more often than not, I've said it before. I found this blog article of mine written in 2008, which kind of summarises my views about religion pretty well.

What more should I or do I need to say? Well, the only thing that troubles me about religion are religious people. These are the so-called learned preachers who spread messages of hate and spite for other religions and treating 'unbelievers' as people who are too blind to see the obvious truth. They think only they have a monopoly of divine insights.

That immediately screams of ignorance. It is like someone who specialises in a specific genre of music, say Jazz, claiming that it is the only true form of music; all others are false. Jazz is supreme because it sees through the 'falsehood' of traditional harmony. One can see how naive that is.

Music and art in general are creative products of human culture and civilisation. There are many different schools and forms of music that emerges, in response to the epoch which the humans live in. It's a beautiful thing. Why limit ourselves with one type of music? 

Now hang on, I can hear the religionists objecting: religion is not like music. It is Truth with capital T itself. It determines the purpose of our lives and where we end up after death. Isn't the question of death something that should be treated seriously? How can you treat it as like as some kind of frivolous entertainment like music?

I've explained why music is a good metaphor for religion elsewhere before and will not repeat my arguments here. But the most important thing that bears repeating again is this: if only our attitude towards religion is like what we have towards music, the world would be a much better place. We all listen to the music that speaks to us personally, so why deny others their own choice of music? If you don't like the music, switch to another radio station. What's the big deal? Why should I be so bothered that you not dig Jazz?

While comparing religion with music, it is also interesting to note that some religious authorities also take issue with music as a kind of frivolity that corrupts the soul of its listeners.  Throughout history, religions have always been suspicious of anything that involves the pleasures of the senses.  Piety is seen as something that rises above the base cravings of the mortal body. 

Music, dancing and the consumption of intoxicants seem to go hand-in-hand and are often associated with activities that are immoral, in the eyes of the religion. At one time, even coffee--which induces a strong craving and consumed in coffee-houses where people socialise and supposedly engage in licentiousness--provoked strong debates among religious authorities as to whether it should be banned.

Every institutionalised religion sees itself as a kind of social and political framework for building a utopian society. If everyone adheres to its doctrinal rules, it would usher in a golden age where humanity flourishes. That is the dream of many religious visionaries--the realisation of the Kingdom of God on Earth.

We all love utopias, especially when we are young and just becoming aware of all the injustices in the real world. Religion and other ideologies like communism offer a vision of a better society which is worth fighting for. It feels great and meaningful to be fighting for a cause. And sometimes you are even willing to die for it. Dying for a noble (and better still, divine) cause gives life meaning. And God knows we cannot live without meaning.

We've seen this movie before. It gets played again and again, like we are caught in some kind of infinite loop. It is a zeal that is difficult to comprehend, but it is part of the human impulse. 

It is what I see in the software development world too. A new framework comes up that promises to be the ideal one for web development. And religious wars are often fought over them (e.g. React vs Angular), with fanatical supporters on both side. Who is right, who is wrong? Well, it depends. Adopt what suits you best. Inevitably, another framework or programming paradigm will come along, promising a more utopian vision. 

Let's all for once, grow up when it comes to religion. Appreciate them as one would, when listening to music. They might or might not be to your taste. You can celebrate them, but never dictate what others should or should not listen to. There is no such thing as the Ultimate Music. 

The Philosophic Quest

And my productive Saturday begins now: posting a new blog article. What shall I touch on today? I've ranted about the education system last week; this week I'm going to discuss something else: my general philosophy on life.

Anyone who has read some blog posts of mine would know that I'm kind of a Stoic. I value equanimity--which is also a Buddhist attitude towards life, even though I wouldn't officially call myself a Buddhist.  I don't get overboard when Fortune grants me its blessings, nor do I get dejected whenever things do not go my way. I would also admit that I'm a bit of an existentialist because I believe in defining my own purpose in life and living authentically based on what I define as meaningful.

Fate has given us different initial or starting conditions which either encourage or inhibit certain aspects of our genetic dispositions. I do believe that big part of our character is due to Nature; nurture merely sets up the environment which determine which characteristics of ours flourish or languish. 

Our hardwired tendencies make certain outcomes more likely in the trajectory of our lives. Certain characteristics are self-reenforcing--if you are attracted towards a certain subject or object, you will move towards it, acquiring new information, skills and company that make you dwell deeper into those domains.

I find almost everything interesting and I believe in sampling the wisdom of every culture and tradition, appreciating both their similarities and differences. It is true that I often criticise practitioners of institutionalised religions for being dogmatic, superstitious and blindly ritualistic but at the same time I also understand why they are so appealing to great masses of humanity. I am unsympathetic towards religious supremacists who think that they are ones who are privy to divine truths, but I am also an ardent student of all the religions of the world, because I think they all contain some kernel of wisdom within.

Being an explorer of different religions has enabled me to gain insights into mankind's collective psyche: the primal instincts that drive our actions and the spiritual yearnings that lift us up to greatness.  I am driven by the impulse of life to self-preserve this bodily existence and at the same time attempt to transcend it. 

Throughout the ages, humanity has tried to express these complex drives through art, religion, science and technology. I am a student of all these diverse areas because they constitute life as we know it and being able to grasp and appreciate them makes a fulfilling life.

Being able to catch of glimpse, in my very limited way, of all the fruits of human civilisation is a great blessing which I am extremely grateful of. I never cease to marvel at the fact that all the good things in life are so cheaply available and it is our good fortune (and if you are reading this, you can count yourself among the blessed) that we are given the privilege to access them.

The fact that I could write these sentences and immediately anyone in the world with access to internet could read them, is a miracle of technology and we are only on the cusp of this great transformation, which, if we conduct ourselves with wisdom and foresight, can only transform lives for the better. 

Philosophy is the greatest gift of life. If we are religious, it is because we are driven by a philosophical urge to make sense of our lives. By studying philosophy, we are exploring ourselves as individuals and societies, and our place in the universe. We might not be able to find answers that fully satisfy us, but it is the philosophic quest itself that imbues our lives with joy and meaning.

Unlearning to Learn

I decided to write from a cafe today, squeezed--not uncomfortably though--behind a tiny round table, which could barely accommodate my laptop and a cup of hot chocolate. Sometimes I think better in such public places, drowned in the white noise of people's voices and the ambient traffic. 

I have in mind a few topics which I could dwell on, but I think I would like to let them marinate in my mind for a while before I sample them again for taste. Last week, I wrote about my views on our education system, which in reading back, is more of a teaser.

I'm going to riff around the same topic today because there are a few more things that I want to say--not necessarily because I think I have a solution to all the problems that beset our education system, but I just want to add a perspective that's not often expressed. 

When I was in school and even in college, I realised that there are many of my classmates who were more diligent and worked a lot harder than me.  But they did not perform better than me in exams. Is it because I am smarter? Certainly not in the regular sense. Is it because I have a better memory and is able to regurgitate back all the facts in exams? No,  and I know I don't employ some of the techniques that my classmates use to cram things into memory. 

Perhaps my only quality is that I've always understood the strengths and weaknesses of my mind, and was able to find ways to leverage or work around them. I devised my own tools and techniques to learn as effectively as I could, many which I later discovered, were techniques taught by learning experts. 

I understood the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve intuitively, and I was always looking for metaphors and analogies to understand difficult concepts. If this is considered 'intelligence', then I probably have a bit of that. But there are many types of smarts, and fate has dealt each one of us with a different hand. Some have a flair for languages, some have an innate mathematical brain, others have better social and emotion intelligence. We are all products of the genetic lottery.

A good education system has to understand all these differences and be able to help students identify and address their strengths and weaknesses. We hear about falling interests in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths). To some, this is a cause for worry. But I hear others who think that our education system is deteriorating because subjects like philosophy are not taught in universities anymore. If no one is studying science and engineering and the philosophy is no longer taught anymore, what are our students learning these days?

I believe the biggest problem we face is dogmatism. We know one discipline, one culture, one religion and think that is the solution to all the problems of the world. We today are actually blessed with more educational resources than any other generation the human species have ever possessed. The internet is the ultimate resource centre. If we are still not getting educated, it's because we're mired in dogmatism and closed-mindedness. We only use social networks to reinforce dogma. That perhaps is the biggest problem of our education system. We've mistaken dogma for knowledge. A mind filled with dogma is worse than an empty one.

Being educated means realising our own ignorance as a first step. And then only the learning adventure begins. You have to learn where the gaps are in your own mind.  Socrates's exhortation to his fellow human beings to "know thyself", is the first goal of education. Dogma is ignorance. Only when dogma is unlearned, can real learning begins.

The Kernel of Education

Today for a change I'm going to blog about a contemporary issue. I usually shun these topics because most of the time enough has already been said about them. I have nothing novel to contribute. Furthermore, I know exactly what my point of view is and I'm not interested to convince others about it. I blog for my own benefit. 

What's the topic for today? Education in general and our Malaysian education system in particular. I read frequently about how bad our education system is. It is 'broken'; it is 'politicised'; 'we are far behind our neighbours'--these are common refrains. How true is that?

Now, I am a product of the Malaysian education system. 100%, from kindergarten to university. I am a pure product of the public school system. My primary and secondary education were completely in Bahasa Malaysia. Even in university, they tried their best to conduct all the courses in BM. Some courses accomplished that better than others. I remember my 3 years of mathematics of my engineering degree course were taught completely in BM.  

Of course, textbooks in BM at the tertiary level were non-existent. We had to read all our reference books in English but answer exam questions in BM. We were given some leeway for some courses that were only taught partially in BM: we were required to 'answer at least two questions in Bahasa Malaysia'!

I remember my first year Computers 101 course was also completely in BM. I could still remember some of the terms used: the mouse is tetikus; peripherals are called peranti susur-keliling; the UNIX shell, kerang and my personal favourite: nyahpepijat. (which never fail to put my younger colleagues now in stitches). If you can't figure that one out, here's a clue: nyah is a negative prefix often used to replace the prefix 'dis' in English. e.g. discharge is nyahcas. Anyone who has written some computer code would have done nyahpepijat before.

Throughout my entire primary and secondary school years I had no problems learning mathematics and science in BM. That was because they had proper BM equivalents for all the scientific terms. Mass is jisim; velocity, halaju; volume, isipadu; gradient, kecerunan; compound, sebatian; catalyst, mangkin; integration, pengkamilan; arithmetic progression, janjang kira-kira. 

Of course I didn't know the English equivalents then.  I only became acquainted with them when I reached university and found that all the textbooks were in English. But it was not a big deal, because there's always a one-to-one mapping between these scientific terms. 

Now, comes the hotly debated issue: should Maths and Science be taught in English? 

As someone who had the bulk of his maths and science education in Bahasa, my answer is: ideally, yes but not necessarily. Did I face any difficulties when I had to refer to books and technical papers written in English in university? Well, there were slight adjustments required but by and large, all my peers had no issues.  Having the subject taught in BM did not in any way make us less competent in the subject. We all went out into the world to become competent technical professionals serving global multi-nationals, communicating primarily in English.

Would it had been better if we had been taught in English instead? Yes, it certainly would have helped but not by a huge degree. We all had some basic education in English. We could navigate ourselves through textbooks and papers in English, even though the technical terms are different. That's not the main issue, as most of the BM terms were derivations from their English ones anyway (logarithms, logaritma, entropy, entropi).  

The main issue that needs to be addressed in our schools is the poor standard of English. This cannot be addressed simply by teaching Maths and Science in English.  The only real solution is a radical one:  use English as the main medium of communication in all our schools.  Even during my time, the standard of English among all my peers who went through the public school had dropped considerably after the mandatory change of medium to BM, especially in small towns and kampungs. 

Of course, we all know that using English as the main medium for teaching is a non-starter in our present political climate.  What then is the solution?  You know what? I think the teaching of languages in general has to be improved.  I even think our mastery of Bahasa Malaysia is bad. How many people read books BM?  

It actually doesn't matter what language is the medium of instruction. We need to inculcate a love for the humanities--literature, history and philosophy with an emphasis on reading and writing. We should strive to be multilingual, just like how we play different sports in school. We can be very good in one, but we should appreciate and know the rules of the others and be able to play them, if need to.

Am I being too idealistic? Most certainly.  I am advocating a re-emphasis on an education in liberal arts.  That would be the ultimate goal. It means a complete relook on what education is: not to produce a workforce, but to produce quality open-minded, thinking individuals.  That to me, is the real purpose of education. 

A liberal arts education is the foundation of an educated person. Learn the basics of being a well-balanced, decent human being in school. That forms the kernel of one's education. The rest are applications that can be learned from YouTube.

Insight-Seeing

What a busy long weekend it has been for me. I had earlier planned to write my weekly blogpost on Friday when I was on leave but other urgent matters overtook me and I had to attend to them first. Thankfully all that is settled now, and finally I have a chance to reflect on things.

Last week, I talked about attention as being key. When we pay attention, we are minimising noise and ensuring the quality of input data. The neural network of the mind does the rest. It sounds pretty simple. What I've not mentioned as a corollary of that principle is that, we are also being non-judgmental and non-attached when we pay pure attention.

Judging means applying some kind of logic and moral algorithm to process the input information. No, we don't need that at this stage. That is application specific. When we are learning, all accurate data is good data. We don't filter, eliminate or transform them.  Let our deep learning network within be the 'judge'.

Part of the value of taking a break and going on a vacation is being able to get fresh input data. When on vacation, we enjoy new sights and sensations. The mind has a natural tendency to crave for novelty. This 'craving',  given a positive spin, is simply curiosity. Anything that's familiar and mundane is automatically pushed to the background. When too much of the familiar is repeated, we enter into a state called 'boredom'. 

We take sight-seeing as a kind of recreation, which all humans  enjoy as part of the good life. If we think about it, why should we waste time gawking artificial statues and other kitschy constructions made to pander to tourists who are only interested in taking selfies and boasting about what a good time they are having in social media? 

Do we learn anything from these kind of sight-seeing vacations? You might ask: why do we need to be such a boring spoilsport to insist that anything we do must be 'educational' and 'useful'? Why can't we relax and enjoy doing something that doesn't have any purpose for once? 

I'm all for doing 'useless' activities, as long as one enjoys it. What I probably would suggest is perhaps we could also kill two birds with one stone: dumb activities could also be useful data for the neural network, which we call the mind. 

We can enjoy doing silly things but be mindful at the same time. We can be attentive, even when we 'let go'.  When we are attentive in anything, we always gain insight into things. Insight is like a phase shift in the mind: a new pattern suddenly emerges out or chaos; the cumulative succession of things and events reveal a larger picture, hitherto hidden. Insight is emergent. 

Even the most mundane things we do, have the potential to give us great insight into life and the universe. The mind simply has to be tuned to receive them. Sometimes we call these insights 'inspiration'. 

Mindful attention is a quality of mind that comes with practice. There's a sensitivity and sharpness to one's perception that grow over time. How do we cultivate that?  One becomes attentive by not being goal-oriented at every moment in time. Goals are macroscopic conceptions. When we look at every moment of our experience, there's no such thing as goals, hopes or fears. The moment is as it is. We take it in its totality and move on to the next.

When we do that, we are attentive to the moment and all the sights and sounds that wash over us. Let them nourish the mind. Enjoy your vacation by taking a cosmic selfie every moment of your time. It's called insight-seeing. 

Acing Attention

Today I'm fuelled by coffee rather than tea for a change. Unlike weekdays, I usually eat a light lunch on weekends and today it's a nice Subway sandwich, a BMT Italian.  Having wolfed that down together with some mushroom soup, I now settle down to the more serious business of expounding my thoughts for the week.

I feel particularly elated whenever my week has been productive. But how do we measure productivity? We could be very efficient in doing unnecessary tasks throughout the day. Useful output over time is what I aim for. But now we have to define what we mean by 'useful'?

Is going on a beach holiday beneficial? Or Is finishing that 50 page proposal which you'e promised your boss, useful? The former could be good for you in terms of mental and physical health. You need to take time off to recharge your body and mind. The latter could help advance your career. Producing something that you could somehow tie to a desired goal is considered 'useful work'. 

In my case, I hardly ever take a holiday. My way of recharging is simply to spend time like this: relaxing with a drink, a good book, or turning finger movements this into words (voila!). When it comes to work, I don't have any long-term goals: the mere act of accomplishing a task to the best of my ability is sufficient reason for me to feel fulfilled. I am the judge of the quality of my work and I set the bar pretty high. If I fall short, I would analyse why I had not been at my best and learn from it.

The good thing that comes with age and maturity is that one gains perspective on things. Nothing is too big or too small. Any wild emotional swing can be tempered with the steadying hand of wisdom. You care not about what other people think, because everyone is in the same boat. We all have a finite lifetime and are merely reacting to the promptings of our genes for self-preservation.

If we choose to pay attention, every experience in life, no matter how trivial, carries some lesson. Every piece of training data, readjusts some weights in the deep learning network of the brain. The key is to pay attention, and that's what meditation is all about.

Attention means getting quality input data. Usually we are distracted by all sorts of emotional noise in our heads. We don't have to crank our heads too much to 'understand' something; start simply with focussed attention. Tune the cognitive radio for best reception and once you receive the input with clarity, don't touch that dial.  Tune the receiver, focus the lens. The rest of the things will fall into place.

Clarity of thought or insight never comes immediately. We just focus on the quality of the data that's being fed to the mind. As long as we pay attention, we will subconsciously milk them for all they are worth. Apply attention to everything you do. Even the most mundane moments have something to teach us.  Attention is all there is. Just ace it.

The Quiescent Hum of Happiness

The word 'Happiness' comes into my mind when I opened this blank page to write. Am I feeling happy? It depends on what one means by happiness.

In general there are two types of happiness. There's that conventional one: you've got a raise or promotion; your favourite soccer team just won the league; you see your loved ones again after a long separation. This is that surge of elation one feels when a favourable event happens to you. But they always subside after a while. You return to your regular quiescent state.

It is this quiescent state--your everyday background mode which I'm more interested in. Because this is where true happiness manifests itself. If you are truly happy, you have an undercurrent of joy permeating your entire being. Nothing in particular is really happening, but you just feel at home and contented. You are not anxious about anything. You see the past with equanimity and gratitude and you welcome the future with an open optimism. 

You are not exactly walking around with a smile on your face, but your overall attitude is one of cheerfulness and positivity. Neither does it mean that you are shielded from any unpleasantness or pain, rather you know how to see things in their proper perspective. A dark cloud could momentarily shield the golden rays of the sun, but you, that bright resplendent orb in the sky, remain untainted.  

All dark clouds drift away eventually. True happiness is the ability to maintain that background feeling of joy, which like a carrier wave, is ever-present, and only occasionally modulated by bursty signals, which we, with our ignorant minds, label 'happiness' and 'sorrow'. 

True happiness is that positive constancy that emerges when the momentary flashes of pain or pleasure subside. Pleasure is not happiness. Neither is pain, sorrow.  

When this background state drops below zero, and strays into the negative region, we call this depression. A person suffering from depression always needs something or someone to distract him or her from this default state. There's a nagging sense of emptiness, loneliness and fear that surfaces when all the noise of everyday life has subsided.

How then does one establish this level where joy constantly permeates the mind? Well, by not allowing any event or thought to dominate the mind. This is called equanimity. We can slowly train ourselves to acquire this habit by simply not grasping to anything. Every moment is fulfilled completely. And we live for each and every moment of our existence, truly and thoroughly. All we experience are fulfilled moments.

The devotionally type can use the worship of God to cultivate this state of being. Everything is willed by God. Your successes are blessings from God, which you enjoy with a sense of gratitude. The challenges are merely tests from the Almighty, which you face courageously. That quiescent state of joy would arise--which you would feel as the grace of God.

The atheistic or agnostic types can use reason to cultivate this state. Tune the machine of your body and mind to run at this optimum state of happiness. Everything--the crests and troughs of pain and pleasure--are merely perturbations to the system. Make sure that the hardware and software is sufficiently resilient to  maintain stability and equilibrium. 

True happiness is within everyone's grasp. We just have to find it within. Let your mind be quiet for a while. Listen to the hum of quiescence within. Does it ring of happiness?

The Wave Equation of Existence

My all-time favourite opening line from a novel has always been the one from Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude". It goes like this:

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

I read the book more than 30 years ago and the magic of that first line still lingers clearly in my mind. In just a simple sentence, so much is conveyed--mystery and tragedy (why is he facing the firing squad?), a sense of epic time ("many years later...remember that distant afternoon..."), nostalgia (remembrance of a childhood spent with his father) and wonderment (why was ice such a novelty?).

I'm so glad that they are releasing a miniseries in Netflix based on the book soon. And that very first line itself was cleverly used cinematically as the teaser trailer for the series.  It's a beautiful introduction to this masterpiece of an epic that truly defined the magical realism genre: poignantly whimsical, filled with incidental delights masterfully woven into a thematic fabric of subtle socio-political commentary.  It is a multi-generational tale of the Buendia family set in the fictitious town of Mocondo. The trailer made me want to read the book again and I'm certain that I'll derive so much more insight from a repeat read.

Similarly with books which I had read during my teenage years like Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird". I was probably too young to understand the Southern racism theme in the novel then, but I thoroughly enjoyed the world as seen from the point of view of a child, one with another memorable first line: When he was nearly thirteen my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. 

So much of who I am is shaped by the books I've read and movies that I've seen.  Maybe they awaken the archetypes in my subconscious which I resonate strongly with. Our genes determine a lot of our characteristics--physical, emotional and intellectual. But sometimes these genes are not able to find their expression due to the limiting factor of the environment. The environment serves up the "boundary conditions" that determine the possible solutions to the wave equation of our existence.

External content from books and movies are like excitation energy that rouses our dormant genes and push them into full expression. While philosophers debate the existence or non-existence of Free Will, we'll continue to live the only way we know, as no matter how much you scratch your head and deliberate, you will always end up with the present moment and doing the things you are doing.

You are the unfolding expression of your genes, like a flower opening up into full bloom, fulfilling your role in the ecosystem of the garden which you sprouted from.  Deciding the kind of person that you want to be is part and parcel of that unfolding. The feeling of agency that we have in determining the course of our lives is simply a feature of this causal chain. 

All the beautiful books that had touched me as a child, teenager and adult came into my orbit because I had 'attracted' them through the filter of my mind and also the consequence of zillions of micro-decisions that I had made. Driven by the inexorable pulse of life, I had been led to specific shelves in specific bookstores and libraries, resulting in me spending hours and days perusing pages of sentences filled with potent insights.

I can see broad patterns in this grand unfolding; the undulation, the ebb and flow of the elan vital that thrusts one headlong into one's destiny. Embrace it and swim in its warm currents. Life has to be lived through the many irreducible steps of its unfolding computation. And that is the only that we can solve the wave equation of existence.

 

Of Friends, Fuzziness, Fun and the Fount of Creativity

It has been a long week for me, tackling various different issues at work. What a welcome relief it is to be able to finally sit back, relax and reflect, by writing my weekly blog article. I should have written this earlier this morning but I've been catching up with some old friends over lunch.

Sometimes social activities would disrupt my weekend routine of writing and reading but it's a welcome change. Exchanging views with friends is a great learning experience. We all see life from different perspectives and our own views could be narrow and parochial without us realising it. Simply listening to other people would sometimes force us to reexamine our own beliefs. 

When it comes to the subject of religion or spirituality, everyone resonates to a different set of vocabulary. Those with an engineering or scientific bent would like to think and explain in terms of 'energy' or 'states of mind', which I admittedly have a tendency to do too.  Those who have a more literary or poetic disposition would tend to be receptive to a language that uses words like 'love', 'glory' or 'grace'.  The former speaks to the intellect, the latter, the heart.

I have friends who claim that they are not spiritual at all.  But they all have fallen in love, gotten married and have an idea of what makes a 'good life'. They all appreciate, to various extents, beauty in music and art. To me, when you are capable of love and beauty, you have already entered the spiritual realm. We are all, like it or not, homo spiritus.

We become spiritual the moment we start questioning the meaning of our existence. The need to love and be loved, is the germ of the spiritual impulse. When we admire the vast beauty of the blue ocean, or a view of a landscape from a mountain-top, we are seized by a feeling of awe and grandeur, and ultimately, a yearning for something higher.

There must be something more than this; some grand scheme of things where we are a part of. We long to be connected to it. This hunger for meaning and transcendence--is this simply a quirk of the human intelligence, a spandrel of evolution, almost like a useless by-product?

Or is it our real nature--the driving force behind evolution itself? Something like Schopenhauer's concept of will or Hegel's geist? Any philosophical explanation of the world has to be expressed in human language. And there's where all hell breaks loose. 

Words are never truly objective. Every word has a fuzzy boundary--almost like an electron, which has a position defined probabilistically. We kind of know--or intuit--the meaning of a word and what it most likely means. But no two person can see the same bulls-eye. 

For every word, our 'meaning clouds' do overlap, but when we have many words joined together into sentences, the final outcome could convey something very different in the minds of the speaker and the listener. 

Listening with an open mind means that one is aware of the fuzziness inherent in language and is constantly readjusting one's conceptual framework to accommodate different possibilities.  It is the fuzziness of language that makes it fun, and ultimately serve as the fount of creativity. 

The Virus of Ignorance

I wrote about divine revelation last week, on Revelation Day. This week I'm going to explore why religion can inspire huge swaths of humanity towards greatness, and paradoxically, it is also the reason for violence between believers and non-believers.

Religion unlocks the spiritual dimension in all of us. A little bit of religion can be a dangerous thing, because once the spirit is unleashed, it thinks that it is the mightiest force in the universe.  Like first love, religious feelings can feel very right.  If these passions are channelled towards the right direction, great things can come about. A person can be inspired to greatness, with all his good qualities amplified. Cathedrals and civilisations are built this way.

But if the religious person has insecurities and prejudices, coupled with ignorance, then that little bit of spiritual awakening can turn a person into a bigot. It is easy to be carried away by the romance of religion--that sense of superiority and empowerment that one draws from a community of believers. Religion sometimes short-circuits the mind and turn a person into an ugly zealot, capable of hatred and violence of the most terrible kind.

A religious person who exhibits saintly virtues is one whose innate goodness has been made manifest through the practise religion. Religion accentuates and transform them into powerful qualities that make these souls charismatic leaders of their communities.  But because all humans are ultimately flawed, these elevated beings, if and when they fall, they fall hard.

Good religious leaders are never attention seekers. They are sought after because of their wisdom. But they have the self-awareness and humility to know the limited extent of their knowledge and influence.  They know that truth is strong enough to stand on its own without needing to shout from the pulpit. Wisdom is a tree that bears fruit a the right time. It is not a volcano that erupts violently with fire and brimstone.

All religions are man-made institutions. They are built to perpetuate some spiritual truths, which are not the monopoly of any group or sect.  Like different schools of art or music, they celebrate different aspects of the aesthetic impulse. It is also no surprise that all religions inspired great works of art and architecture. Religion expands the realm of consciousness and offers us glimpses of beauty and insight, that transcends the seemingly meaningless world of the mundane.

The true spiritual seeker, like an astute connoisseur of art, seeks and celebrates all religious traditions, appreciating them as diverse expressions of the divine spirit. Doctrinal differences are nothing but a testimony to the richness of human experience and our feeble attempts to express its verisimilitude.

Religion, art, culture and politics are part of the humanity. And as human beings, we live to socialise, philosophise and romanticise. Sometimes we get caught up in the passionate fervour of it all; sometimes we bicker foolishly over trivialities and other times we are completely blinded by our intolerance and ignorance that we are driven to settle them with blood. 

Sadly, ignorance is often spread by preachers in the name of religion. Dogma, superstition and bigotry are implanted into eager young minds, seeking meaning and truth. Ignorance, couched in religious garb, is a virus that kills, literally. Only an open mind, exposed to the whole gamut of human knowledge, acquires the resistance against such attacks. May we all have the strength and resilience to acquire the immunity that is wisdom.

Reflections on Revelations

Today is a public holiday because it is Nuzul Al Quran or the Quran Revelation Day--the day when Muslims celebrate the Prophet Muhammad's first revelation from God through the Angel Gabriel at the cave of Hira' in the year 610 CE.

Iqra!--was the first word uttered by the Angel Gabriel. This is usually translated as 'read' or 'recite'.  Read what? I don't know how to read! This was the first shocked reaction of Muhammad, who was then nothing but an ordinary Arab merchant, wise, pious and trustworthy, but quite illiterate. 

The Angel Gabriel, comforted the cowering man and then proclaimed the famous first five verses:

Read in the name of your Lord who created--

Created man from a clinging substance.

Read, and your Lord is most Generous--

He who taught by the pen--

Taught man that which he knew not.

You can find these verses in the Quran today in chapter or Surah 96, called 'Al-Alaq'. Why are they not in chapter 1 of the Holy Book itself? Well, the chapters of the Quran are not arranged in the chronological order as they were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad over a period of 23 years. This was based on historical and practical reasons. In the beginning the Quran was memorised and transmitted orally.  The arrangement, as it was passed down, was probably arranged based on thematic coherence and linguistic flow.  

I like the three key words that immediately strike the mind with powerful imagery when we read these verses: 'read', 'clinging substance' and 'pen'--iqra, alaq and qalam.   The 'clinging substance' -- al-alaq--from which the surah takes its name, is sometimes translated as 'clot'. It reminds us of the humble origin of man as nothing but a sticky lump of blood, an embryo clinging to the wall of the uterus. The act of reading and the instrument of the pen (by which God taught Man), symbolises the heights of knowledge and wisdom which that clinging substance could ultimately aspire to.

The task for Man as decreed by God is immediately conveyed: rise from ignorance to enlightenment. Reading and writing are indeed the hallmarks of a great civilisation. And the inspiration from the written verses of the Quran, together with their stirring recitations have certainly roused the nomadic tribes of Arabia into a conquering force, creating a civilisation and empire, which at its heights covered great portions of the three continents of Europe, Africa and Asia.

Though I do not know Arabic, let alone the classical version used in the Quran, I could see how poetic and powerful its verses are. I hear the rousing call of azan and sometimes prayers broadcasted from the nearby mosque, every morning while lying in bed. The sound and rhythm of the recitation alone carries deep resonance.

Karen Armstrong, author of A History of God and many other books on religion including a biography of Muhammad, wrote that it was like Muhammad had invented a new literary form--the verses of the Quran struck the minds of the Arabic speaker deeply and emotionally. 

Having the aesthetic sense stirred, is the first sign of spiritual awakening.  The most direct path to the spiritual source of the human psyche is through sound. And the poetic verses of the Quran, combining meaning, imagery and sound, ignites the divine spark in the reader and listener.

We humans have different constitutions and dispositions. Like the Prophet Muhammad, we will all find one or many moments in our lives which completely shift our entire perspective. All of us receive revelations; just that sometimes they pass right through us, because or we did not notice them or are plainly ignorant. So what's the remedy for that? 

Simple: Iqra!

The Art of Acceptance

I'm happy that I don't have to spend much of my weekend on my day job, unlike in the past.  It had been my practice to reserve my weekends for 'real work' -- work that requires deep thought and concentration. The weekdays are for transactional activities--meetings and emails mostly. But these days, my work is chiefly transactional and this is great because I don't have to carry them over to the weekend.

However today, because there's some scheduled maintenance work, I had to spend the early part of the afternoon working online. Now that it's done, I'm free to blog, or as I like to put it: taking my keyboard fingers for a walk.

Maybe these fingers have an intelligence of their own. They bring me wherever they choose to go. Dear fingers, where are you leading me now? Clickety-click, clickety-click...let's write about...'Acceptance'. Hmm, why this topic and what do I have to say about it? 

I've certainly written about this subject before. But lately I've been listening to a lot of people complaining about the hot weather. Well, the temperature usually soars this time of the year, every year. But why do people still complain about it, as if it is the first time that they are experiencing it? 

I noticed that it is hot, but not particularly hotter than any previous years. I don't suffer any major discomfort from it. True, I have my air-conditioning running most of the time while at work but when I'm outdoors, I do sweat profusely, and feel the burning heat of our tropical sun.

I simply acknowledge it and move on. Complaining doesn't make the heat wave go away. Acceptance does. I realised that life is miserable for a lot of people because they fuss over things that they have no control over. We can influence many other things in our lives but not the weather. You can't prevent yourself from sweating, no matter how hard you try. Sweating is certainly uncomfortable but if you keep on harping on it, you'll only make yourself miserable.

Acceptance is a skill that people need to cultivate. It may sound like a simple thing, but it is not because we are so used to not accepting the situation as it is and strive to change it. Yes, I agree that the world is a better place because many enterprising people chose not to accept things as they are and strive to create a better one. What I'm highlighting is that one must be wise in choosing what to accept and not. 

For example, any misfortune that befalls us, be it an illness, loss of a loved one or financial loss, could cause us enormous emotional distress. This is expected and unavoidable. If one were to continuously wallow in despair or self-pity, at some point it becomes self-defeating. You would only create more harm to your physical and mental health.

All pain has a life-cyle. Allow it to reach its fullness and let it decay gracefully. Acceptance is simply acknowledging this natural process and letting it play itself out. Karma works itself out completely and optimally when given the chance. This also applies to simple discomforts like the hot weather. Accept it, and immediately your mind moves on to more important things. Why complain and give it the time and energy that it does not deserve? Take the necessary action to reduce the discomfort, if you need to. Otherwise, save the energy for more important things.

Through acceptance, one becomes 'life-dynamic'--like how a fish moves through water. One senses discomfort and obstacles, acknowledges them and perform the necessary action to minimise their effects. Acceptance is optimisation at work. Acceptance is an art which we all need to practice. And be grateful that life always provides sufficient discomforts for you to hone it to perfection. 

Bibliophilic Bouts

I was at the barber just now and I had to wait a short while for my turn. As always, waiting is never an issue as it means that I am pleasantly rewarded with some reading time. 

How often do we complain that we do not have the time to indulge in our hobbies. Well, if reading happens to be your pastime of choice, then you're in luck. You can squeeze it into the interstices of your life--all those tiny amount of time in between major events or tasks which make up your day.

Reading to me is like eating. Every sentence is a morsel of food, which you savour with your mind. And you'd relish it exactly like a tantalising piece of delicacy dropped into your salivating mouth. Only that the nourishment from the former is, I would argue, exceeds anything that is consumed orally.

I do not only read everywhere, I've also acquired the habit of annotating the pages of my book with a pencil. And I'm not doing it because I have to mark up facts for some research project, just that reading and annotating is my way of fully concentrating and enjoying every word and sentence that the author has carefully and painstakingly assembled for my edification. 

I know, it's a peculiar sight these days to find anyone reading in public, what more with a 2B pencil in hand, dissecting blocks of text on a piece of printed page. And to extend the food analogy further: my pencil is like an eating utensil--not unlike a pair of chopsticks--picking out and shoving bite-sized chunks of savoury delights into my mind.

An annotated page immediately becomes mine: it is the conquered terrain, which I the reader-traveller had ploughed through, with some effort. Experiences movingly carved with the scalpel of my pencil.  The marginalia becomes the journal of my reading life. Thoughts, events and silent chuckles captured in black scrawls, marking the width and breadth of my bibliophilic realm, 

I read for the sheer pleasure of consuming text; the nourishments of its contents is an additional bonus which my mind is rewarded with. And over time, I realised that my sensitivity to words and their multi-various meanings becomes greatly enhanced.  My mental tastebuds have acquired aptitudes in ever-expanding dimensions, opening vistas of delights hitherto unknown.

Ah, I'm waxing lyrical again about the ecstatic joys of reading, especially the form that involves the dead-tree variety--this gluttony of books, which I succumb, unashamedly to; this hill of hedonism which I willingly die on. I do not claim any intellectual or moral superiority--it is simply an indulgence, pure and simple.

So do not attempt to save me from this addiction which had and is consuming my life. This junkie seeks no pity nor sympathy. I read, therefore I am. And occasionally I write too, in blog articles like these here. But these are just the sober interludes between my blissful bouts of bibliophilia.

Grumblings and Gratitude

Today I've decided not to write anything ponderous and pseudo-philosophical, which is my usual staple of weekly ramblings. There are a lot of fun subjects that people in social media write about. Why can't I be like them sometimes? Rave about the best nasi lemak in town; comment on the latest 3R (race, royalty and religion) meme or just bitch about things in general?

What are the everyday things that annoy me? Let me think. I've trained myself to look at the positive side of things that I've gotten into the habit of ignoring anything that annoys me.  But I do get annoyed sometimes. For example, whenever I'm driving and someone honks loudly and unnecessarily. It perturbs me but I tend to let it go immediately.  

I rarely use the horn and if I do, I often apply my well-practiced staccato toot. To me the car horn is one feature that no manufacturer has gotten right. Why can't we have a polite horn--a doorbell-like sound that says 'excuse me', instead of that loud blare that screams "fuck off" or "stupid asshole"?  What we need is the horn equivalent of a small and big flush, like what you see on some eco-friendly toilets. Raising your voice (or horn) should never be your default mode, well, unless you are driving in India. Then it's a different story, for there driving is a social experience. Honking is a way to announce and acknowledge the presence of others on the road.

Youtube ads used to annoy me too but I paid my way out of it by subscribing to its premium version. It's one subscription which I think is worth it because it saves one a lot of time, and spares the mind of a lot of irritating brags by self-styled gurus peddling their get-rich-quick secrets.

Some banking apps annoy me because they don't make things easy for you. Logging in is always a challenge and when you do succeed, they clutter your screen with pop-up ads and security warnings. And these days, the trend is to display accounts in a fancy carousel, which requires you to scroll horizontally. The combination of horizontal and vertical scrolling, though cool, is annoying, at least to me. 

But having been a developer myself, I know how these UI decisions are arrived upon. Most product owners prioritise form over function. Product features are decided by a committee of people. They are just interested to check all the boxes which the management had decided. Developers code features blindly and unquestioningly. And when you have been viewing and testing your UI for months, you fail to see how it would look to someone using it for the first time. What does the user see first?  A few things need to stand out from the clutter. These have to be the few things that the user is interested in. Do your selling later. Let the user get on with the main functions of the app. 

In the brick-and-mortar world, there are service establishments that fall to the same trap of not prioritising the customer. There are some restaurants that annoyed me by serving hot tea in a paper cup, when the main course is served in nice plates and stainless steel cutlery. I can understand if you are a fast-food restaurant, but if you are charging me premium prices in a cosy dine-in place, I think it is an affront to serve hot drinks, and tea especially, in a paper cup.

At the end of the day, whenever we reflect upon all these little annoyances, we should also remind ourselves to be grateful for being able to enjoy all these little luxuries and conveniences of life. At least we are able to afford them and be able to drive, surf, bank and eat in relative comfort.  Find something to be grateful about every time you grumble. You will find that Gratitude is the great dissolver of annoyances. 

The Harmonics of Thoughts

When I write longhand with a fountain pen in my journal, I get to examine every thought with precision. Writing, like meditation, allows you to recalibrate your mind. The mind is an instrument that needs to be handled with care. It is a powerful tool which, if used correctly can affect changes in the world.

The mind filters our perception of the world.  It is like a language model that interprets what's out there and attempt to see order out of the jumble of chaos.  Our perception is coloured by experience and ego.  Meditation, and journalling helps you to identify the tendencies of the mind and its many biases.

The mind abhors uncertainty. It wants to be decisive and is thus prone to making snap judgements on people and situations. Once an opinion has 'snapped' into place, it is difficult to dislodge it. Prejudices are examples of such snap judgements, which have been elevated to the level of 'facts', in the person's mind. We do not question them anymore. They are as real as the object sitting right in front of us.

It is important to be vigilante of this tendency of the mind. Remember, the mind likes the world to be binary. Yes or no; white or black. Nuances are expensive to keep track of. They consume compute time and memory. The mind wants to decide fast, so that it can get on with the next thing.

By slowing down a thought, you perceive all the properties that make up its composition.  You observe that a thought is the superposition of many sub-thoughts. Break them down; do the equivalent of a Fourier Transform of your thought signal. You will then identify the fundamental thought frequencies that are constantly reverberating in your mind.

Your fears and prejudices manifest as distinctive frequency bands in every thought. Once you see them, you can then apply the necessary filters to eliminate them.  At the same time, you'll also be able to pick out the good tendencies that you want to accentuate. Filter out the bad, amplify the good.

Every thought is rich in harmonic frequencies. Through meditation, you catch a glimpse of these underlying harmonics and be able to trace their subtle origins. Writing in longhand with a good fountain pen enables us to expose these harmonics in a tactile and visual manner.  

And how do you shape the spectrum of your thought signals? Through writing too. Put forth a proposition. Materialise it in the form of a sentence. Shape every letter and word slowly and watch them manifest on the page.  That's the best way to control what thought comes into your mind: you simply inject the thought through the physical act of writing. By physicalising a thought, you accentuate it. The pen is both the transducer and the actuator.

So be sensitive to the harmonics of your thoughts. It is through their control and mastery that put you in harmony with the universe.

The Perfect Mouthful of a Moment

I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to write about today but let me riff a little first. I write to relax, and certainly not to stress myself unnecessarily to meet the demands of a certain readership. It's a bit like journalling (which I also do, the old-fashioned way with a notebook and fountain pen), but not exactly because blogging, being public, is a little bit more formal.

A blog article is an exploration, a study, a sketch. It's not exactly fit for print publication because it's raw and at times meandering, not having the benefit of good copy-editing. But hopefully it is comprehensible to anyone to happens to chance upon it.  And for me, it helps me to clarify my thoughts about certain subjects that occupy my mind.

Blogging, like reading, is an activity which I like to perform at a cafe, where I could observe people and the world. Sometimes I amuse myself with morbid thoughts like how in another hundred years, everyone that I see around me would have been dead, (including yours truly, of course). Every care and concern that they have now would have been totally forgotten. 

The aromatic and relaxing Earl Grey that I'm sipping now, the joy that I feel typing these words, the laughter of kids playing around the mock plum blossom tree, the father in shorts pushing the shopping trolley filled with food provisions for the family, the pair of lovers holding hands and playfully teasing each other--that procession of peace, joy and well-being paraded here--gone! Everyone dissolving into bones and ashes, blown by the winds of time.

It is morbid, yet beautiful and sobering. So how shall we live life? Do we try our best to create an enduring mark in this world? What legacy do we want to leave behind? Grateful descendants who would continue the good name of the family and remember you fondly? And perhaps you'll be in heaven then, looking down and seeing everything with great satisfaction?

If that defines you, go on and pursue it with all the zeal, energy and passion that life has blessed you with. Live every moment to the fullest. To the caterpillar, heaven is an infinite expanse of green delicious leaves, where one could crawl and gnaw in content without fear of being eaten by birds. When they become butterflies dancing from flower to flower in the garden of paradise, will they remember their humble beginnings as slimy, crawling tubes of bird-feed?

Since we can't conceptualise what it is like after death, or if there's even a 'life' as we know it, then let's all be good caterpillars, gnawing gratefully on the leafy meal before us, creeping happily in our 2D world, oblivious to the predatory birds that swoop down on us from above. 

Misfortune, sickness and calamity could befall any one of us. The whole purpose of celebrating the Lunar New Year is to look forward to another year ahead that's hopefully free from such ill-luck. We can only have the moment we have now and every one of them has to be lived with positive optimism. The fact that you are aware and conscious of doing so, means that you are living life to the fullest. Is there any other way to live?

The challenge is that we are not aware of our every moment of existence. And that's when life becomes miserable. Here, look at this moment. Gone. And this moment. Gone. Are you alright? Are you at peace? If you are, clamp your mandibles on that morsel of moss and gnaw on.  

Never lose sight of moment at hand, for misery can only creep in whenever you take your eye off the ball. Hey, this moment is as good as any other. Live it first. Living it fully and wisely will bring forth better quality moments next. But there's no need to think too far ahead. Imagine that this moment is all there is. The next one is a bonus. Infuse this moment with every hope, fervour and passion that you could muster. You will find that they are the sauce and condiments that make this moment that perfect mouthful. 

The Source of Strength

I'm taking a break from work when most Chinese would be starting theirs after the long Chinese New Year break. Apparently today, the sixth day of the New Year is an auspicious day to open your business again for the Year of the Dragon. I'm looking forward to the long weekend and hopefully I'll still get to enjoy a less crowded city, at least for a day or two before the rest of the horde returns to the city, spent and satiated, after the week-long orgy of gambling and gluttony.

Gambling is a pleasure which I am fortunately, immune to. I understand that it can be very addictive. Some people can't resist food or liquor. I love both, but I'm not addicted to them. It is very liberating when one is not addicted to anything. But wouldn't life be very dull, without any kind of harmless 'vice'?

I do have my addictions too but I choose them very carefully. I'm addicted to books. What's the worse the could happen to someone who is an incurable bibliophile? I probably spend too much money on books and constantly complain that there's a lack of shelves to store them properly; curse whenever someone borrows or does not return, or worst still loses them; lament that there's a lack of time to read them all; suffer the sight of these beautiful tomes disintegrating under the ravages of time.  Well, it is suffering indeed, but it is suffering that I chose consciously as a kind of penance. 

Everything good in life comes with a price. I've mentioned before that the price of pleasure is pain. As Jerry Seinfield puts it insightfully in his interview with Howard Stone when describing how much of a torture it is to be constantly having to find materials for his jokes: one must find the torture that one is comfortable with, and that is your blessing in life. Work is a torture for some people but we get paid for enduring it. So learn to be comfortable with it. And if you have the right attitude, all that suffering makes you stronger and better.

When it comes to work, what we call experience is simply skills and reflexes honed by pain. Exercise is painful. But repeated practice makes you fitter. And you'll soon find yourself increasing the difficulty levels so that you may enjoy the satisfaction of conquering them. Ramp up the pain to amp up the pleasure. 

One must however know when this pain that we take on willingly becomes chronic stress. Nietzsche famously wrote "that which does not kill us makes us stronger".  That is only true when one fully recovers from whatever harm that is inflicted on our mind and body. Remember, one could also die from a thousand cuts. 

So one must be very wise in the frequency and amount of pain that one takes on. They have to be carefully chosen to bring the best returns. The body and mind must have time to heal and recuperate. When you give the body time to learn and deal with the pain, then only will it become stronger.  

Let us look forward to the Year of the Dragon and see every obstacle as an opportunity to become stronger. Let's take whatever pain that comes our way positively and enjoy the pleasures bestowed on us in moderation.  Let's all rise like dragons to its challenges and grow from strength to strength!

Unleashing the Dormant Dragon

The Chinese celebrate their new year today and it's the year of the dragon, a mythical creature that is much admired by them as a symbol of strength and greatness. The archetype of the dragon lodges deeply in the psyche of someone brought up within the Chinese culture. It defines his or her attitude towards life.

I've mentioned elsewhere before that the Chinese are masters of positive thinking. Darkness, gloom and melancholy are not 'romantic' to the Chinese mind. No, the offsprings of the Yellow Emperor do not like to wallow in defeat or self-pity; they are instead pragmatic, positive and progressive.  If Dostoevsky claims that the Russian soul is a dark place, then the Chinese soul would be its complete opposite.

The Chinese celebrates growth and expansion.  One has to be materially successful first before one can benevolent and charitable. Magnanimity is a natural by-product of worldly success.  A street-wise smartness is a virtue and pre-requisite to a bright future. The young must be hardworking, be respectful of elders and sifus, and be willing to take the necessary hard-knocks in life to move ahead.

The stereotype of the rag-to-riches Chinese business tycoon, exemplifies this ideal and is the pinnacle of what the Chinese considers a noble person in society. Success is always social and should be celebrated loudly and boisterously. 

Chinese New Year season is that time of the year when one is ambushed everywhere by the pounding drums of the lion dance or the loud crackles of firecrackers. 'Wake up from your gloom!', 'Join the march towards success!' 'Conquer the material world!'. It is in-your-face and unabashed. It is the secret of the community's success, wherever they choose to settle down in the world.

The dragon is the apt symbol of all this positive energy.  A dragon child embodies this potential for growth and expansion.  Nothing stops a dragon when it is set on something. Once someone has internalised the dragon soul, it is almost inevitable that something fruitful and positive will result. 

Unlike the fear evoked by the reptilian dragons of our evolutionary past mentioned in Carl Sagan's book, The Dragons of Eden, the Chinese dragon is the kundalini that lies sleeping in every soul. You just need to stir it, and off it goes to chase after its fireball of success.

There's a dormant dragon in each and every one of us. Like Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones, If you know how to tame, control and ride your dragon, it is your greatest ally. But remember, one must always be its master not the slave. The role could so easily be reversed, if one is not vigilant. 

Monuments of Happiness

Today is an opportunity to catch my breath, after a hectic work-week. Last Saturday, I drove back to my hometown and stayed for a night. This weekend is a longer one for me because I'm on leave today. I spent the morning and early afternoon going to the supermarket and running other errands.

Here I am finally, in my abode of books in Cyberjaya, allowing my mind to rest, so that mundane thoughts fade away and deeper insights may surface. I 'recalibrate' my mind every day in my daily meditation. At the very least, doing a sanity check on all the thoughts in my mind is very helpful. I get to re-orientate myself in the right direction and ensure that I do not veer off into interminably unproductive mental side-roads.

As I write this, the sky is getting dark outside and I can hear the distant rumbling of thunder. There'll be an outburst of rain later, like most evenings during this time of the year. But the monsoon is coming to its tail-end and soon we'll be facing hot and dry weather. Another year gets on its way.

Before that, we'll be welcoming the Chinese Lunar New Year, which is a bit of a distraction at the beginning of the year, but nevertheless worth celebrating. That's how we humans live our lives--we celebrate the passing of the seasons and commemorate important events in our community.  So much of our happiness and sorrow comes from living in a society of people.

No two persons think alike. You could find friends who share many of your beliefs and norms, but if you've lived together in close quarters with anyone before, you would know that you'll have make a lot of adjustments to avoid unhappiness or conflict.

We have certain core characteristics that we stubbornly maintain throughout our lives and at the same time we also change in many aspects as we grow older. Pain and pleasure are the sculptors that mould us into who we are now.  

Our experiences in life is like the torrential rain that I see outside now, lashing onto the roof and walls of my apartment, testing their rigidity and sturdiness, probing for crevices to seep into, threatening to flood all the precious belongings that I have. 

We have to suffer a lot of pain to protect the things we love. That lesson has to be learned again and again. The unrelenting rain is constantly probing for weaknesses on my roof and if I am not vigilant, I will have to deal with roof leakages into my apartment again. To live is to delay the inevitable increase of entropy within the sphere of concern.

The body breaks down as we age. While we are healthy, we expend our energies building as perfect a life as we possibly could: a career, a family and a beautiful home. But all these are temporary manifestations that would ultimately dissolve as we grow older and die. We'll have to let them go, sooner or later. The Second Law of Thermodynamics that dictate the increase in entropy and hence the breakdown of all things would ultimately triumph.

Nevertheless, we should not be deterred. The moment we surrender, we cease to live. To live is to suffer these pains, consciously and stoically. We also enjoy the pleasures that come from having a world moulded to our vision, at least within our circle of concern, no matter how fleeting they are. 

We take what life throws at us bravely for that is the whole point of living. Every happiness in life is a monument to the pain that had to be endured to achieve it. Let's look back on all our monuments of happiness and know that they have to sit on a foundation of suffering.

The Insight of Ignorance

Back in my hometown this weekend and as always I end up rummaging through my old books and wandered down memory lane. It gladdens me to know that I've come a long way towards my childhood quest to understand the world. But I still have a long way to go.

The most important knowledge one needs to acquire is the knowledge of one's ignorance. We must know the limits of our own understanding. If we don't, we'll be trapped in a finite world of dogma, disguised as certainty. As a kid, I wanted to know about the origin of the cosmos, the fundamental nature of the universe and the ultimate purpose of existence. As I grew older, I gained some understanding in many of these areas and realised that there's so much more for me to tackle. The quest seems endless; one can never arrive at some definite endpoint.

But one should not despair because of that. Cliche though it may sound, it is the journey that matters. And as you gain more insights, your perception of the world shifts, opening vistas which you hitherto had not imagined. We are, what physicist Stephen Wolfram refers to as 'computationally bounded observers'. 

When we are perceiving the world, due to computational irreducibility, we can only perceive the universe in a very specific way. Our brains are finite computers--it will see only coarse-grained features. Our physical theories, will inevitably reflect our peculiar way of perceiving the world. 

I'd like to think that I've been expanding the computational capability of my brain since those teenage years of mine and at some point I will hit a limit. A computing brain within a computational universe can only, at best improve the language used to describe the workings of universe but it will still be finite. No language, even one like mathematics, can ever fully explain the universe.

It takes a certain wisdom to understand one's ignorance. And I'm happy to embrace the shallowness of my understanding. It is through this awareness of one's own stupidity that the boundary of one's intelligence can be expanded further.

We are trapped in this veil of ignorance simply because we are computationally bounded observers, embedded in a larger computational universe. The universe that we perceive, even with our best scientific understanding, is still only a parochial view of reality. But at the same time, we should not shy away from rejoicing in the fact that we are a natural consequence of how the universe is. 

Our existence is inevitable and once we are aware of our existence, we can reflect and track our evolving existence, using our finite computational ability. As all the ancient teachers have told us, an insight into our very own ignorance is the very key to enlightenment. 

Being Conscious

In a blog article posted in 2018, titled, System Administrator of the Mind, I wrote about how the mind is like a Unix operating system, with thoughts as processes running in memory. Meditation is the equivalent of typing "ps -ef", to list the processes running and if necessary, kill off unnecessary ones that are hogging resources.

People who have no introspective capability, are always operating in application mode. The main application that runs in our bio-computer is one called "Self" or "I". Any decision-making that our brains are concerned with are all at the application-level, of which the chief concern is the perpetuation and survival of the Self, which is a conceptual abstraction of the body and mind.

As a living biological system, we are concerned with the survival of the human body (the hardware) and mind (the software). The identity we have are our genes and whatever information that we have captured and integrated into our minds. Just like an AI model, our Natural Intelligence model has evolved through a lifetime of learning. I suspect, our knowledge-store is not simply limited to the neuronal structure of the brain but also in the body, in the form of bio-chemical processes, protein structure, the timing and sequence of genetic expression and also the microbiome. 

The Self is needless to say, "selfish". Every action that we do, is geared towards the preservation of our self-identity, which is nothing more than information. Theoretically, in the future, we can completely capture this information model which you call "I" and run it on a more a more durable computer. Like it or not, in a way, we are all simulations. 

If the Self is nothing but a stream of information, then is there no such thing as a "soul", which many religions belief is the underlying reality of our existence? Yes and no.  You see, the word "soul" is another abstraction. Just like "information stream" or "stream of consciousness" or even "consciousness". The moment we label anything, we are giving it a conceptual reality. As the Gospel of John so cryptically expressed, "In the beginning was the Word". When the Word is expressed, it immediately exists in a kind of Platonic realm--an abstract class, which can be implemented and instantiated in different substrate.

Maybe there is an ultimate reality which is the "Brahman", the substrate from which all concepts find instantiation. But the moment we say it, Brahman is conceptualised--there's a Subject-Object relationship, a Knower and the Known, a Seer and the Seen. 

So we have this primordial concept of a Self-the Atman, that is observing creation itself. That is the simplest and lowest level of conception--the 1-and-0 binary system that gives birth to the multiplicity of the universe.  The simplest thing that we can conceive of in our minds is a "Oneness" or a "Nothingness" or god-forbid,  "God". 

You know you are conscious. That in a way is the only thing that you "know". It is this conscious knowing that matters. When you meditate, you are simply experiencing consciousness as it is, without getting tangled up in all the different conceptual layers. We relinquish every possible category error, by recognising everything as they are. All thoughts, in the end are concepts--the multiplicity, resulting from the subject-object duality. 

Will you be conscious forever? Does this consciousness survive the material death of your body? Well, you'll find out when the time comes. If you are really conscious, you would not have anything to worry about.

The Arc of Karma

Tea on a Saturday afternoon in my apartment, with fingers poised over my keyboard. Here I am again, typing my blog article of the week. I'm slowly regaining my strength after recovering from my unfortunate bout of Covid-19. Writing, as always is relaxing and therapeutic and I'm happy to be typing away, trying to latch on to a topic to dwell upon this week.

When I think about all the strife that's in this world today, I often wonder why we humans never seem to be able to rise above our petty little squabbles and focus on things that really matter in life. I remember how historian Yuvah Noah Harari often talks about how important stories are to humans. We, for some reason, attach ourselves to particular narratives about ourselves, our community and our nation. 

Without the narrative of a story, we find life meaningless and aimless. So we live and die for stories. And the myths of religion become the pillars of our existence--something that we defend with our lives and squabble endlessly over.  The human mind only understands and responds to stories. Facts have to be presented as stories or they will never sink in. Legends and myths endure because it is the only mnemonic mechanism that works.

We enjoy ourselves by watching and reading fictional stories about people and places. We support our favourite soccer teams and buy in to the belief that there's a core philosophy in the way they play and what the management stands for. Companies try to create a corporate culture too. All such fictional stories help to bind a community together, without which, we do not seem to be able to be stirred into action.

Individuals too, attempt to build a story about their role in their community as a parent, a successful professional and contributing meaningfully to some cause in society. And that happiness is simply the realisation of such stories in their lives. Stories are the arc of our karma.

We want, we desire, we aspire. All these longings are couched in a neat story of existence, which drives our lives forward. We enjoy and suffer the ups and downs of this story-arc. We console ourselves by telling ourselves that the trough of suffering is worth it, because of all the peaks of happiness that we receive along the way.

All of us will transcend and grow out of this roller-coaster that we're on. And only then do we find liberation from the cycles of joy and suffering. Seeing things with equanimity is the first sign of maturity along this self-propelling train of life. 

Whenever we look at things with a dispassionate eye, we allow things to find expression in the most optimal way. There's no over-reaction to either the positives or negatives. We neutralise karma, simply by noticing and acknowledging every oscillation of our emotions. 

Take a hard look at yourself. What kind of story do you carry with you? What narratives in your life drive you forward? Whatever they are, they determine the pain and pleasure of your existence. 

We, cannot live without stories, but we can always find better ones. Good stories are like computer programs that execute the karmic purpose of your life efficiently.  So take control of your story and not let others define it for you. 

Thoughts in Isolation

"Reading made me a traveller; travel sent me back to books" 

- Paul Theroux

My year started with an unexpected setback: I tested positive for Covid-19 on the very first day of the year. I had awakened on Monday with a strange chill in the body and a feeling of tiredness. Aware that the number of infections have risen sharply recently, I proceeded to take a self-test and true enough, it was positive.

But since I work from home anyway, I continued working as usual and my productivity was not affected at all. My symptoms were mild and it was just slightly uncomfortable during the first 2 days. I had no fever at all but there's some irritation in my throat, which made it slightly difficult to talk in con-calls.  I feel back to normal now, after 6 days of isolation, but annoyingly I'm still testing positive.  No matter, everything I have is in my room--sufficient books to last years of continuous reading and a good internet connection. Can't think of anything else that I need. Secular sanyasins like me are an easily contented lot.

Yesterday, I decided to take leave and dedicated the whole day to reading--a luxury I've not had for a long time. Today, I'll simply do my usual Saturday routine, which is to blog and read a good short story. I have the practice of reading a short story every week; only one, so that I have the opportunity to reflect on it for the rest of the week. Last week, I was thoroughly entertained by Guy de Maupassant's Mademoiselle Fifi--another brilliant story (like his most famous one, Boule de Suif)  set during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, involving a prostitute as the unlikely heroine. I have not decided what is this week's pick, but I usually try to choose a different author every week.  

My bedroom now is almost exactly the same size as the one I had rented in Singapore, when I was working there more than 2 decades ago. It was a second floor HDB flat located in Bishan, which I had lived happily for a number of years, doing a lot of work via my 4mbps ADSL connection. 

I used to work from home too, even then, as my job involved a lot of travelling and I rarely went to the local office.  My bedroom then was also filled to the brim with books that I had bought, mostly from Borders at Orchard Road. It is quite impossible to be unhappy, when one is surrounded by books.

Many decades ago, on my first business trip to Silicon Valley, I lived in a motel for at least a month in Palo Alto. I remember many beautiful quiet nights there reading hardcover books I had bought cheaply from a bookstore nearby--especially books on exploration like Pacific Passions and The Mutiny on the Bounty, which for some reason, I was obsessed with then.

Isolation has never been a problem for me, as long as I have something to read.  Long flights to and from the States had been great opportunities to finish entire books on a single journey.  Maybe that is why I actually have a preference for going on trips alone rather than with colleagues because I'd get a chance to read and reflect. 

Thinking back, I remember more about foreign cities which I had spent a lot of time alone in than those I had visited together with friends. For example, I can hardly remember anything about Honolulu, Lyon, Shanghai or Seoul because I had been carousing there with my colleagues during my trips there.

I agree with Paul Theroux that real travel is at best a solitary enterprise.  He refers to the "lucidity of loneliness" to capture unique insights about any particular place.  My wanderlust has waned considerably over the last decade or so, but my passion for reading had only intensified. Admittedly my reading has increasingly being augmented by technology such as audiobooks and videos, but they only enriched and expanded my reading experience.

Slowing down and isolating myself because of Covid-19 isn't such a bad thing after all.  I reconnected with my reading roots--to those wonderful days and nights I had as a child, reading in the garden amidst orchids and daisies under the blue sky, and later as an adult in tiny motels and luxury hotel rooms over the world, in slow-moving trains, in busy airport lounges and long interminable flights across the Pacific. Yes, thanks to Covid-19, I'm happily banished to isolation again with my books.