The Examination of Life

"The unexamined life is not worth living"  - Socrates

Reflecting on how sedate my life is nowadays, I thought of writing about a time when life was more turbulent and uncertain--the passionate days of my youth, especially my undergraduate days.

Poetry poured out of my soul then. I was always scribbling down verses which found some readership in a local tabloid. Those were days before Instagram and Facebook and had I been born later I probably would be attempting to find my niche among the Insta-poet crowd.

Recalling some of my juvenilia, I realized that I had been heavily influenced by the romantic poets like Shelley, Wordsworth and Byron and also modern ones like Dylan Thomas and Edwin Muir. 

I was an engineering student at a local university but I spent my days in the university library in the Humanities section, lapping up the literary treasures denied of me, growing up in a small town.

There were eagerness, passion, anger and loneliness mixed up in a potent brew which fueled my incessant scribblings. I was comfortable straddling the worlds of the arts and the sciences--being compartmentalized into any one area would have suffocated me. It wasn't my nature. Science and mathematics gave me the grandeur of vision; the arts, a sense of beauty that yearns for expression.

In the cold halls of the library, I read Kant, Aurobindo, Asimov (whom I found had a book of dirty limericks), the letters of Dylan Thomas and also books about movies. I remember enjoying one which analyzed all the movies of Stanley Kubrick. The wealth of knowledge did distract me from my engineering studies but I always made sure that I studied intensely before the final exams to get good grades.

Exams, which thankfully we only had to sit once a year were harrowingly difficult, not because the questions were tough but more because we did not know what were we supposed to know. I was not a good note-taker and unlike students today who have the luxury of being given lecture notes and Powerpoint slides, we had to make sense of the aimless ramblings of the lecturers--many of whom taught at their whim and fancy.

I could understand why some students were driven to the edge of desperation during exam season--there were always rumours of some poor soul in another faculty attempting suicide. The library would be filled to the brim the month before exam. One had to go early in the morning to book one's seat. Everyone had their favourite spot to study--mine was close to the philosophy section on the ground floor.

I did not feel any sense of accomplishment even after I had graduated with a good Upper First Class degree. University education was a bit of a letdown; the only consolation was the library where I saw how wide the world of knowledge was. It despaired me to know how much more I had to know to understand the world.

Thinking back, my life could have taken so many different turns but I chose the mundane one, gaining employment with one of the large multinationals where quite by accident I entered the world IT, because I was tasked with the job of managing a network of UNIX workstations. 

But I never had a sense of a career--a job was something one did to sustain oneself so that one could decipher the mysteries of the universe. Throughout my entire life, I had never made a move that I had thought would advance my professional career. The real meaning of life was always elsewhere. And this has been the recurrent theme in my life--from the turbulence of my youth to a temperate middle-age. 

One could say that I am unpragmatic and and unworldly. Perhaps so. But one thing I've realized is that one can never suppress one's true nature. I am comfortable living the life I choose. I could not have chosen any other path.

Facing examinations in university was tough, but to me life itself is one big on-going examination. The questions of this examination are posed by nature, and there are no correct answers. One just has to commit to one's chosen answer and follow its consequences. That to me, is the proverbial 'examined life' of Socrates.

The Firmware of Violence

The biggest news this week is the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.  Philosophers and psychologists have long claimed that war is Man's natural state. And today I'm going to reflect on this truism. Can we as a human species ever outgrow war as a way to settle conflicts?

First of all we have to acknowledge that we are all born different. Both genes and our environment shape the way we think and feel about the world. The moment a child is born, we can see that each one already has a different personality--some cry louder than others, some are more active and others show annoyance over certain types of discomforts.

If we put two individuals with different personalities in close proximity, frictions are bound to occur. Each one of us have different wants and expectations.  We want to control the environment around us so that it maximizes our comfort and pleasure. We want to feel at ease--to not feel threatened and to live the life we choose.

At the same time, we also realize that no individual can live in isolation. We seek the companionship of others to fulfill both our physical and psychological needs. We need things and services that come from others and that is what makes an economy.  Naturally, genetically similar individuals flock together. When similar people congregate, they create a way of living, which we call 'culture'.

Culture emerges naturally out of human interactions. Genetically and culturally similar people is what makes a tribe. A tribe, or culturally similar tribes occupying a geographical area becomes a country. Laws are written down to formalize the previously unspoken contract between these individuals. 

Law and culture bind a nation together, allowing everyone to know what is acceptable, and what is not. No one will have all their wants and preferences met but the fact that they choose to remain within a society means that the benefits far outweigh its inconveniences.

Is it any surprise that the differences between countries are no different from differences between individuals? Political leaders who determine the course of a nation are both a reflection and a magnification of the peoples beliefs. A strong leader accentuates and reemphasize certain cultural beliefs of a nation. 

A leader can come to the conclusion that his or her nation is under threat. And to protect the people's interest they should go to war. And so a country goes to war with another. 

Is war ever justified? Certainly not. But can humans outgrow their violent impulse to subjugate another? Not when we have uncontrollable fears, wants and urges. Is there a way out of this quadmire? Not with our present level of thinking. We need a massive paradigm shift to lift ourselves up to the next level of civilization.

But that is not impossible. We have fundamental shifts in human society before--like the abolition of slavery and the emancipation of women. War is a tougher nut to crack. How do we outlaw war and enforce it? With what? With more violence?

How do we as a human species outgrow our animal instinct for territoriality and violence? These instincts are deeply embedded in our hardware and firmware. We cannot reengineer ourselves genetically yet. It is also difficult to change our culture--which I liken to firmware and operating system. But we can certainly enforce it on the application layer. 

That's where law and ethics come into play. Religion was supposed to be a powerful software that could alter the behaviour of humans but it is a double-edged sword, which, more often than not, is used to justify violence and accentuates differences between people.

Mental transformations can only happen gradually by examining our firmware code line by line. That's where mindfulness come into play. When a violent instinct arises, you detect it early, acknowledge it and insert a check: if violent, let go. Slowly, it'll become a habit that's part of the firmware.

Let God be X

I was reading the newspapers early this morning and a couple of things about religion riled me up. But I'm not going to succumb to the temptation of ranting about it again. I've said enough. Today, I'm going to write about learning.

This is a topic that has intrigued me every since I was a kid. I've always observed that each one of us is born with a certain aptitude for specific areas and not others. I noticed that in my class then, there were those who were hopeless when it came to subjects like mathematics, but excel in languages.

What makes a person pick up maths easily but flounders when it comes to stringing a simple sentence in English? In my case, I certainly wasn't a math whiz and I even disliked the subject during my primary years,  but then I learned to like the subject when I entered Form Four. 

I've always loved subjects like history and geography but was also scientifically inclined. Which made me neither this nor that. If there had put me in the Arts stream, I would have been bored by the way in which there teach the subjects. Humanities require good, inspirational teachers, which are few and far between.

Like all reasonably good students, I was of course put in the Science stream. And that was a revelation, akin to a religious awakening. The subjects of Physics and Chemistry suddenly opened to me what real science was all about--that the universe itself could be understood and expressed in beautiful mathematics. Mathematics became to me, the language of God. 

I fell in love with mathematics. But I realized at that time, I did not perform as well in the subject as some of the other students who came from Chinese schools. I was curious. What was their secret that made them excel in the subject?

As I spent more time with them, I noticed that their minds were more logical. There's no vagueness in everything they say or do. It was the 'dullness' of their logical minds that made them think clearly when it came to solving math problems. 

This clear logical style of thinking is something that my young mind was not accustomed to. I had the mind of an artist--prone to passionate bursts of emotion and poetry. A romantic, if you will. And when it came to solving mathematic problems, I was careless and always making silly mistakes. And I noticed that I did not bother to understand the underlying concepts with the thoroughness and clarity of a logician.

 To achieve that precision and clarity of thinking, I realized that I had to slow down my mind. As an artist, I value my flights of fancy--the flurry and passion of thoughts as they whiz through the mind. But this is like painting in broad impressionistic strokes of impasto. You can fill the canvas up very quickly but leave out a lot of details.

When it comes to mathematics, you have to be a Pointillist. One dot at a time. One logical conclusion after another. State a fact, and then ask yourself, what's the next logical step. Put that down on paper, clearly. Clarity and precision are key.  Always, one statement of truth at a time. Break a large problem into smaller parts. Tackle them independently, and then put the pieces together. By following this principle, you will always arrive at the inevitable conclusion: the right answer.

I began to perform a lot better in maths after that. I was thoroughly in love with the subject because it opened up a world of beauty to me. Every problem, can be broken down into simple parts, by the application of specific mathematical techniques--a deft substitution, a transformation or a geometrical approach. And when I saw how mathematics were used to expressed the laws of Nature, I was ecstatic because I finally could catch a glimpse of God's genius.

It is funny how I use the word "God" so often when I discuss mathematics but in everyday life, I try to make my language secular. You will never find me saying "God bless you". But when it comes to mathematics, I am unashamedly 'religious'.

I am veering dangerously back into the subject of religion, which I am trying to avoid because I have written too much about it. But I just want to register this point: it was applied mathematics that made me understand why people find the concept of a personal God, even an impersonal one, appealing.

For instance, in the subject of Statics Mechanics, there's the concept of centre-of-gravity. You are always given a weird looking object with various weights or forces impinging on it and instructed to calculate where is the centre of gravity for this system of forces. You will define a point X somewhere in the middle of object and then you write an equation that balances the moments caused by the forces clockwise and counter-clockwise. When the point X is found, you can forget about all the other details. Everything reduces to a single force acting on point X. Point X is where you would put your finger, to hold the entire object in balance. A complicated problem is reduced to an extremely simple one, by finding X.

God is like X.  We always need mental stepping stones to figure out the problems in life. As humans, we deal with people. We know how to love or be loved by someone. Our minds work with people-related metaphors. If God is a fictitious lord, invented by superstitious people, it is perhaps a necessary one. We know how to obey or respect a person of authority. And that streamlines all our subsequent actions. A centre-of-gravity 'exists' because all forces act in a resultant manner on that particular point. 

We can debate the ontological truth of God, but we will never transcend the limitations of human understanding, which sees the world in terms of people, 3-dimensional space and time which moves from past to future. We are, in other words, 'naive'.  But even a naive understanding of the universe is useful, as long as we understand it as a model, and not the ultimate reality, if ever there was one.

To tackle mathematics, I had to modify my model of thinking. When I understood mathematics, I saw metaphors that helped me to under other concepts like God. Without labels like "God" or "center-of-gravity", we would find it difficult to express anything that is useful. Is there such a thing as a "center-of-gravity"? It's not important. It is a property of the system that has a certain utilitarian value.

Always define the unknown as X. Put it in an equation. Sometimes there are more than one variable: X, Y, Z or X1, X2, X3....  There's no harm in polytheism as long as it serves some useful purpose. But remember, they are there because we need them to think and act. As long as we are clear with the metaphors that serve us, we'll never run into delusions about their reality. Beyond that, there's nothing more to be said. 

A Quantum of Thought

Yesterday was a crazy day, filled with a flurry of activities. I had to work on some urgent issues on my laptop while coordinating some workers who were repairing my roof leakage and also some movers who came to pick up stuff that my friends left at my apartment when they went back to India.

I worked until almost 1am this morning. Today I had a good breakfast of rice noodles and now I am back in my apartment, hoping to finally relax while writing my weekly blog article.

Blogging can be relaxing when you are just allowing thoughts to deposit themselves on the page. Thoughts come, thoughts go and as they go, they leave a trail of words. When you observe how thoughts arise and fall, you'll understand the basic rhythm of the universe. Observe them like how you would, standing on the beach as waves lap at your feet. 

The waves of thoughts are the residual echoes of previous actions. When you allow them to subside, their energy is expended. Karma is worked out. But when you react to them, you create reverse ripples, which reverberate throughout the universe.

Sometimes what other people do or say stirs up strong reactions in your mind. And if you do not resolve them by allowing them to rise and subside, you'll always be in a state of mental turmoil. A mind at peace is a clear mind, and a clear mind is capable of penetrating any subject that it chooses.

A mind clouded with all sorts of anger and dissatisfaction is like having eyes with cataracts--your vision will be clouded and you won't be able to see through things clearly. By allowing these strong emotions to subside, you'll improve your mindsight.

Blogging is part of my weekly relaxation ritual. As I write, I am able to work things out, letting go of stress and anxiety. And at the end of every blog article, I feel energized, refreshed and enlightened.

Nosce te ipsum--know thyself, as the ancient sages like to say. What better way to do than to write in a journal or blog. We are so preoccupied with the external world that we do not even know the motives of our own words or actions.

Each thought is the summation of your life up to that point in time. There's nothing more about you than that thought that you have now. It contains your entire past and future. So give every quantum of thought its due now.

The Handicap of Luxury

I am writing again after working over the Chinese New Year holidays beginning with New Year's Eve on Monday. I'm finally on leave today and tomorrow. I caught up on my sleep and settled all my outstanding credit card bills. I'm ready to tackle a fresh new month. 

The year doesn't really begin in this part of the world until the Chinese Lunar New Year is done. Usually falling on the end of January or February time-frame, the end of Christmas is the beginning of the CNY shopping season. When all the deafening sound of firecrackers and the pounding drums of the Lion dance have died down, only then can one really get down to business.

However my start to the year has been a good one in terms of reading. Without realizing it, I finished reading 3 books. Now I have the good problem of picking my next read. Maybe this year, I will give special preference to books by local writers, usually biographies or commentaries on local politics. They have always proven to be exciting reads due to their relevance to me. Which is why, I have covered 3 sizable books within a month.

When it comes to books and pens, I live in absolute abundance. These are the only 2 'luxuries' that I unashamedly allow myself to indulge in. I have a collection of fountain pens, which include Mont Blanc, Pelikan, Lamy, Kaweco, Pilot, Parker and Conklin and a selection of multi-coloured inks to go with. 

Recently on a trip back to my hometown, I spotted a beautiful Parker Duofold in the showcase of the local jewellery shop. It has probably sat there for more than 2 decades, the shop proprietor having resigned to keeping it as a prop, as they sell mostly watches and gold to the local clientele. But it was love at first sight for me: I could not resist holding the beautiful marble green Parker Duofold in my hand and dreamt of writing in my journal with it. After some half-hearted haggling, I decided to swipe my card to make that impulse purchase, to the delight of the shop owner.

Expensive fountain pens are a luxury. The ten ringgit one can perform as well as the high-end ones. The Parker Duofold starts with 4 figures, and that's because it has an 18K gold nib, which does not necessarily improve writing experience a thousand-fold. 

For someone who does not like expensive things, collecting fountain pens is a hobby which I 'approve' of, just to ground myself as a normal human being. And this is where it will stop, because I've always considered luxury a handicap.

Once you are used to staying in 5-star hotels, it's difficult to downgrade yourself to cheaper ones. The same goes to other luxuries. Once you've tasted it, it's difficult to let go, and you are forever beholden to that need. That is why I call it a handicap. It's the reason why I do not sleep with the air-condition on. I grew up without one and I could sleep perfectly well. I can sleep anywhere, even if it is hot and stuffy. That is a 'skill' that I want to preserve.

I have nothing against spending on the good things in life if one could afford it. But do not make it another necessary condition for happiness. Remember, no matter how much you have, there's always more to acquire. Were you less happy when you had less? Certainly not. Why create more necessary conditions for happiness? Wealth is relative. There's always someone richer than you. No matter how rich you are, you are still mediocre in the eyes of someone above you.

During Chinese New Year, we wish each other good fortune, wealth and prosperity for the coming year. Define prosperity your own way. It's not necessarily material wealth that we should consider. Being able to work efficiently and thus allowing one to enjoy more leisure is a good form of acquired prosperity.

So I wish everyone a wealth of wisdom in the year of the Tiger. Pick and choose your luxuries and may those that you indulge in do not end up handicapping you in life.

Positive Penance

With the relaxation of Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, I can see the crowd again whenever I go out to do my grocery shopping. Furthermore, it'll be Chinese New Year next week and for the first time in 2 years, people are allowed to go back to their hometowns. I can see shops doing good business now. It is a relieve for many businesses to be able to enjoy the brisk sales of the festive season.

Most people have already gone on leave. I actually look forward to seeing KL streets being emptied again as always during the festive holidays. This year however I will be especially busy because I will be working over the first 3 days of the holidays. 

The pandemic has changed my lifestyle a lot. I hardly go out anymore, except on weekends. Is this change for the better? I am not sure, but I find it interesting that I can adapt to this new routine. I even see it as a kind of penance, that is ultimately good for the soul.

Usually penance is a sort of self-punishment inflicted on oneself in order to repent for some sin committed. It is a way of consciously dealing with the karma of one's actions. You pay your debts now, in the form that you choose so that they do not surface unexpectedly in the future.

Penance and confession come hand-in-hand--something the Catholics know very well.  I think it is a good practice, if not mired in superstitious beliefs. When you confess to some wrongdoing, you are allowing the karma to work itself out in its most efficient way in the external world, instead of allowing the guilt to create all sorts of psychological damage inside.

Penance is karma yoga in action. As long as it is not physically sadistic, it allows a person to suffer pain consciously and enables the effects of one's past actions end  there and then. First you have to identify the action that needs resolution and then you have to clearly see what was the erroneous motivation that led to the action. You confess to it, so that its consequences can be unraveled openly. And then you proactively take its pain by taking penance.

Professional athletes subject themselves to strenuous regiments of training and exercise that are tailored to address weaknesses and build up strengths. Penance is the same too. Penance is a form of spiritual training. To associate it with sin and punishment is to bring an unhealthy element of religious superstition into it. 

We can see every challenge in life as a form of penance. It is challenging to you simply because of certain inherent weaknesses in yourself. And by willingly taking it head-on, you will learn and thus addressing the source of its pain. 

Penance taken to the extreme is asceticism, which is certainly not the Middle Way that the Buddha promoted. Sportsmen know that the wrong type of training can caused injuries. Similarly with asceticism. Let's see penance as something positive and therapeutic. Take the penance approach to every challenge that comes up in your life. And by doing so, every challenge becomes an opportunity to perfect yourself.

The Carrier Wave of Life

Finally, time for some quiet reflection. This is one of the joys of blogging. In a way it is like writing in a journal because it is personal, but expressed in a public way. I've been thinking about this week's topic last night and the thought that occurred to me is the subject of happiness. But a quick check revealed that, I've written about this subject many times before.

Perhaps today we could examine what are the things that make happiness elusive. Is it seemingly elusive because we always define happiness as something that we do not possess now but aim to get in the future? What is your present state of mind? Are you happy? If not, why? Why in the world are you not happy?

When asked this question, the mind would come up with a litany of complaints: I hate my job, I don't have enough time with my loved ones, I have mounting debts, someone backstabbed me in the office, my spouse or partner is not faithful to me. And the list goes on, ad infinitum.

If you think about it, it appears that we define happiness as some ideal state where all the troubles and inconveniences of life are absent. Is this what real happiness is? Perhaps this is why heaven is such an allure to some religious minded people: there all my needs will be met and everything will be ideal and perfect. This mortal world of matter is an imperfect one, created by a lesser God perhaps, like what the Gnostics believe.

Life by definition is inconvenient. If we always envision happiness as some idealized state of perfect bliss, then we may never be happy. Happiness and gratitude goes hand-in-hand. Be grateful that you are blessed with some challenges which you have to strife hard to overcome.  To embrace challenges is to live.

I have an apartment filled with books. That makes me happy. But the apartment roof has a leakage problem, and rain-water seeped into my shelves and ruined some of my books. Does that make me unhappy? It sure perturbed me for a while, but then life is full of such inconveniences. Some people lost all their possessions to the flood recently. My problem, if it is even one, is trivial and petty. And I also know that any attachment causes pain. In this case, I certainly have a lot of attachment to my books--their destruction certainly is a cause of grief. But understanding these things make you see things in their proper perspective.

So life goes on. You have to deal with the maintenance of material possessions because it is their nature to break down. Impermanence and the Second Law of Thermodynamics rule supreme. Being able to see these truths, and seeing them in action in the world, surprisingly brings me a sense of joy.

Because we always define happiness as some sort of peak state, they become elusive. Behind the ups and downs of life there's a constant underneath--I call that the carrier wave of life. It is there to carry the signal of happiness and sadness, the fluctuations in the wave that carry 'information'. If you focus too much on the signal, you miss that state of bliss, the sat-chit-ananda of the mystics, which is that underlying carrier wave.

And what is this carrier wave that underlies life's turbulent experiences? It is that knowing, the wisdom and the truth that reveals itself when we are not distracted by the ecstasy and agony of living. Being able to tap into it gives one the foundation for--not happiness--but, equanimous joy. 

The peaks and troughs of life will come and go but the carrier wave--it is always there. And if you know how to tap into it, you are in touch with your innermost soul. Call it what you may: soul, essence, core, spirit; just remember, it's there always, and at anytime you can  tune into that carrier wave of life.

 

Of Pigs and Politicians

I have been thinking about my blog topic this week for the past few days and actually did have something in mind. But this morning another topic occurred to me and I thought I wanted to get it off my chest by blogging about it.

As the non-existent readers of this blog would know, I never blog about politics. This is not because I'm not interested in the subject but more because I feel that adding more rants--of which most socio-political commentaries are--serve no purpose. There are tons of them around and I have nothing new to say. Nor am I an insider with a first-hand knowledge of things in the corridors of power. But what I am interested in is the psychology politics, politicians, their supporters and the masses, who are the ultimate victims or beneficiaries of the political game.

Comments about politicians are often cynical: they are doing what they are doing for power or other greedy selfish interests. It is often said also in Malaysia that it is politicians that divide us with their rhetoric on race and religion. Actual everyday Malaysians live in harmony with each other and will help each other irrespective of skin-colour or creed.

I think that view is absolutely naive. Politicians are not much different in terms of their 'greed' or 'selfishness' from ordinary people. They are a reflection of who we are--just an exaggerated version. It is very much like how social media amplifies the good and the bad in our society. They are the manifestation of our deepest hopes and fears. They are neither devils or angels, only caricatures of ourselves pushed to the fore by voters who need a vehicle for their expression.

The ordinary citizen is not more virtuous nor moral than politicians. True, to become a politician, one requires certain qualities. I can never see myself as one. But if there's a political figure who believes and expresses the views and principles that I also hold, obviously I would support him or her fervently. Politicians exist because they have support---they exist because we need them to channel our beliefs and principles on how our government should function.

The greed for power does have something to do with a lot of political intrigues in any country. But even ordinary people are seduced by power, just that there is no opportunity for it to surface yet. You want power because you want to be able to command others to do things that you believe in and enjoy the privileges that you think you are entitled to, or get away with.

If you look at how 'ordinary' citizens behave when they are customers in a restaurant: chastising waiters when they get an order wrong, making demands which they are entitled to as a paying customer, you'll see the root of that instinct manifested in our politicians. Politicians are just the embodiment of the ordinary flaws and foibles of society, writ large.

The seemingly selfless NGO leader, who works tirelessly in a charitable organization and criticizes the corrupt political leadership of the country, when put in the position or power, will also face the same criticisms. This is not to excuse the corruption and ineptitude of the government, which in many cases is true but let's not view the world in black and white. 

Everyone has flaws and when you are a public figure, every action of yours, whether good or bad is judged in a very superficial way. The opinion the masses have on a politician is never nuanced. It is the nature of the human mind to make instant judgements and put someone in specific box, often with scant information.

An ordinary citizen who uses his company resources which are within his authority for some harmless, even reasonable personal purpose, gets a way with it because it is trivial. But a politician in power with the authority to award million dollar contracts at his whim, is considered corrupt if he takes such liberties.

Again, this is not to excuse the bad behaviour of our politicians. They are just no better and no worse. The real political leader is someone who understands such human weaknesses and chooses to rise above them. But they are few and far between. 

I don't love or hate politicians. But I do not believe that we'll be better off without them. When you think that we have gotten rid of them, like the chickens and the horses in Orwell's Animal Farm, we will find that the pigs who have taken leadership, are no better.

The Void Beyond Wisdom

This is my first post for the year 2022. It has been a very busy start to the year and it did not occur to me to blog until today when I have a bit of breathing space. My morning and afternoon were spent running errands and the weather which was sunny and hot earlier has now turned gloomy, threatening rain and thunder.

Being out and about today refreshes me. One thing that I have to watch out for during this pandemic is the lack of exercise. I will have to see how I can incorporate more physical activities into my everyday life. 

As one advances in age, one has to be very careful with one's physical and mental health. The body starts its downward slide after a certain age. And so does the mind, if we are not careful.

The thought occurred to me earlier today on how we tend to over-estimate the intelligence of the average adult. We assume that adults possess the necessary reasoning capability and judgement to act wisely. But our actions are only measured by the intelligence of other similar adults--all who have come to the peak, at least biologically, of their mental capabilities. We can continue to learn and gain more knowledge, however as an adult we have to admit our physical body is already on its downward slide. 

An adult would always understand that a child would never understand certain things which they see so clearly. But they know that as the child grows up, he will change his point of view because he would have gained more experience in life and learned its valuable lessons. Our intelligence is not unlike the artificial ones--AI--which is becoming ubiquitous everywhere. It becomes better, the more data or experience is fed into it. It builds its model from the flow of information that it processes everyday.

 But after a certain biological age, the hardware to further improve our intelligence model is no longer growing in tandem. Our intelligence does not register the kind of leaps that we see from a baby to a child, a teenager and finally an adult. 

We can smile and understand the innocence of a child's thinking. But what makes us think that we are not equally naive when viewed from a higher alien intelligence? Why are we so certain that aliens would want to even communicate with us, given our still infantile intelligence?

If we are to project the intellectual growth that we had experienced on the way to adulthood onwards, what levels of super-intelligence would we have achieved, if only our biology is able to keep up with it?

This is why I am not sympathetic to people, especially religious ones, who think they already have all the answers. Everything that seem important to us now, the material life, the family we want to build, our career ambitions, the birth and death of loved ones would seem rather 'childish' when viewed from a higher intellectual vantage point. From there, all our concerns would seem rather petty because we are only seeing a small part of the picture, the same way a child cannot comprehended the everyday cares and concern of an adult.

What is important to us now--like the need to have a happy afterlife--may seem like the silly concern of a child who fears that Santa will not reward him with gifts if he does not behave. A child does not know any better. Neither do adults.

Humility in the face of the unknown is the best attitude. There's nothing wrong in admitting that we don't know and we are working on it. Our brains do not grow at at the rate that we experienced in our adolescence.  But at least we can factor in the limits of our intelligence when discussing matters beyond our ordinary sense-level experience. 

It is my hunch that this life that we cling on to so jealously and desperately is part of a much larger process of evolution, of which "we"--if that word has any meaning of all in this scheme of things-can partake, if we do not prematurely stunt our growth with certainty.

Absolute certainty is our greatest enemy of wisdom.  When we admit that we don't know, at the very least, we are looking out into the void of unknown. Who knows, something profound might emerge slowly out of the darkness?

The Cloak of Boredom

It's the last day of 2021 and a good time for us to reflect back on the year that passed. To the nation and the world in general, it has been nothing short of horrible since the pandemic began. The events of 2021 are those that none of us want to repeat again as we experienced more political upheavals, more deaths due to Covid-19 and culminating with the the worst floods in recent memory.

When I was a kid growing up, every year felt different from the previous one.  I was developing fast both intellectually and emotionally. But after you've reached a certain age, every year begins to feel the same. Your thinking does not seem to have deviated much from those of previous years. It feels as if you've stagnated in your development, if not deteriorated.

That's when you understand how the weariness of life creeps in on you. You do not have the energy to seek for adventures anymore. You become risk averse. You get bored seeing the same things repeating again and again--people's behaviour, the movies on TV and the headlines th in the morning papers. Can you blame some old people for being so cranky? Life can be repetitive.

This year's new year celebrations will be muted as most countries are imposing strict controls due to the surging Omicron infections. Which is well and good for me as I've never really understood why certain days, like New Year's Eve, or one's birthday are singled out as 'special' days that need to be celebrated. Isn't every new day a miracle that deserves equal celebration?

Every night when you go to bed, remember that there's no guarantee that you'll wake up tomorrow. You willingly surrender into the arms of sleep and 'die'. What makes you so sure that you'll still exist tomorrow?

Which is why when you wake up in the morning, that's the greatest moment of all that deserves as much thanks and gratitude as all the other special days. Rejoice for you are alive and able to breathe the morning air and that your heart is still pumping blood into every part of your body and you can command your body and limbs to get up and participate in the daily saga of life.

We need to keep our minds fresh to avoid descending into this state of tiredness. Freshness is achieved by seeing the same things in a new light. It is up to us to live life with a creative eye, to see joy and wonder in even the commonest of things.

Penetrate each moment of existence like sunlight on a multi-faceted jewel. Notice all the subtle variations of light and shade, the dazzling reflections that scatter hues across the room. Each moment is a precious gem that is able to spring its surprises. We just need to look closely.

So let's greet the coming year with this resolve, even if we have to see the same dull headlines and trite cliches being repeated everyday. Look at each moment of experience closer and penetrate the secret of its sameness. For Nature conceals its deepest beauty in a cloak of boredom.  

The Inevitable Tides of Time

This week's blog post has to be about the devastating floods that have wrecked havoc across the nation. I think it started on Friday night, when it began to rain all night and continued raining the whole of Saturday. I didn't pay much attention to it as it was like any typical rainy day in December.

But this particular day was different: a whole month's of rainfall fell within 1 day and water completely inundated many low-lying areas in Selangor, Pahang and even Negri Sembilan.  Klang and Shah Alam were the worst suffering places in Selangor while all the major towns in Pahang had it bad too.

It was like a biblical deluge, threatening to wipe out entire towns and cities. People were trapped on the top floor and roof of their houses, without food, water and electricity. Cars were completely submerged and washed down like flotsam down roads which had now become muddy rivers.

As always there were a lot of blame to go around. People were understandably angry as rescue efforts were slow. The sick, the elderly and the handicapped were  were stranded helplessly in their homes as flood waters rose. People on the ground had to help each other out. The destruction to homes, properties and businesses were incalculable.

This is a double-whammy after the livelihood of so many people had been severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic which is still showing no sign of abating. How do we deal with such challenges in life?

Is life simply suffering, as the 'pessimistic' Buddhists like to put it? Or have we just been lulled by the comforts of our middleclass existence only to find the real world unbearably harsh when we are literally thrown into the deep end of the water?

The truth is that, life has always been precarious. The universe is a harsh place for fragile carbon-based organisms like us which require very optimal conditions to flourish. We are but a small flicker of existence in space and time.

We are small and insignificant when viewed from a cosmic perspective--tiny clumps of molecular debris flushed out into the immense void. This localized aggregation of matter which we call a living being has but only a transient existence. Are our mortal sufferings then considered insignificant in the larger scheme of things?

The very fact that we realize that we are suffering, is by itself an awakening. This chance conglomeration of matter is suddenly conscious of its existence and considers itself to be separate from the universe. This separation and the need to constantly preserve its existence is the very definition of suffering.  

Suffering is the price of consciousness. To love the life we live is to awaken to the bliss and harshness of the universe, in equal measure.  We alternate daily between heaven and hell, finding the former when our needs are met and suffering the latter when what we love are taken away from us.

When we suffer, we are exercising our right to be conscious. We want to control that piece of space-time real estate which we call ours--our bodily existence, our material possessions and our connections to other living beings.

We suffer when we see what is ours destroyed by the ruthless forces of the universe. Relief only comes when we are willing to let go, and allow the torrents of mud and water to reclaim them. In the end, nothing is ours: they were only leased to us at the pleasure of the universe.

We must live with the assumption that nothing is ours. What we consider ours is simply loaned to use temporarily. We should never claim ownership to them. That way, we'll let go of them more easily. Yet, there's no less enjoyment in their possession when we appreciate the fact that we are blessed with the opportunity to enjoy them, even for a brief moment. 

When we assume that everything we have belongs to the universe, we tend to be more generous--giving and sharing whatever that we are being blessed with, which by and large is a matter of chance and luck. And when someone suffers the pain of losing something they own, we share what we have with them. 

It is the giving and sharing--not owning--of what we have, which is what true existence is about. The less we own, the less liable we are to suffering. When the floods come to claim our possession, we know that the debt-collector of pain has come to demand what is due. 

Ultimately, everything will be lost. If not swept away by the waters of the flood, inevitably they will be reclaimed by the tides of time.

World-Weary Words of Hope

I dined out last night alone at the Chinese coffee shop and was surprised that the place was quite empty. The volume of night activities has more than halved and it was pleasant to be able to find parking when in pre-pandemic days, it would have been difficult to even drive through the area.

This is the one good thing that the pandemic brought about. Chinese coffee shops are now much more comfortable places because they are forced to space out their tables and limit the number of patrons. Usually these places are jam-packed with customers and it was never easy to get a place to sit, especially for lone diners like yours truly. The pandemic has ironically made dining out a better experience for people like me, who usually eat alone and linger after my meal to read and drink.

I enjoy drinking beer at the Chinese coffee shop because they are the cheapest places to do so. During my days in Singapore, I used to have beer and stout at the food court near my place and spent time there reading quietly.  Prior to the pandemic, I used to eat alone at a cafe and spent time working on my project after that. 

For better or worse,  the pandemic has certainly brought changes to our lifestyles. We got used to ordering food and eating from home. Many companies found that they could be equally productive having their employees work from home. Some people, by choice or by necessity, decided to switch careers, having rediscovered hobbies or skills which they could make a living on. Wildlife and the environment also had a respite from the intrusion of humans and the pollution caused by their activities.

The pandemic is a good opportunity to re-engineer our lives for the better. The world used to be a quieter and more livable place but we've sacrificed a lot of that in our chase for material prosperity.

The roadsides at my neighbourhood are filled with cars parked indiscriminately. Every house has at least 2 cars. It's difficult even to go anyway on foot as pedestrians have no safe space to walk. All our spare time is consumed by online content. Everyone's attention is glued to some kind of screen.

Is this a better world? Yes and no. On the one hand, we have more accessible knowledge online than we ever had before. But we also had the entire filth of the world available at the click of the mouse. All kids live within a screen-tap away from the worst neighbourhoods in the world.  That's the kind of world we live in now and we have to manage it wisely.

Our roads used to be safe places for cyclists and pedestrians. But now, they are choked with cars and fumes. But we take comfort in the fact that we could also drive in this gridlocked traffic in air-conditioned comfort, plugged into our favourite content, streamed into our car dashboards or headphones.

But as always, I'll count the blessings that we have: we live in a peaceful era and are blessed with an abundance of food. We have the freedom to pursue our goals and are given the opportunity to realize the meaningful life, as we define it. 

There will be moments of world weariness like this but at least I get to blog about it. Having done so, I am grateful and hopeful that the world will self-correct itself and pave the way to a better future for everyone.  

The Reason of Faith

Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth - Pope Leo XIII, 1879.

I touched upon the topic of faith in last week's  article. Let try to elaborate further on that. What is faith? Is reason superior to faith?

Faith is usually used in the context of religion. All religious followers adhere to certain doctrinal beliefs which give them faith about the purpose of their existence. There's an unshakable confidence among the believers that they are guided by some divine power.

The faithful are driven by some inner drive and strength because they have a strong sense of certainty that certain outcomes will materialize. Whenever doubt creeps in, they just remind themselves of their core beliefs to forge a new resolve. Faith is constantly renewed through regular communal rituals and activities. 

Faith is powerful. It can imbue believers with a deep sense of purpose and mission, including sacrificing their lives for some kind of recognition or reward in afterlife. Faith, once cultivated is like a magnetic field that aligns all the particles in one's body an soul towards a particular direction. 

Can faith be blind? Most certainly. This is where reason comes in. Faith is only one part of the equation--very much like how a car requires power from fuel and a driver to steer it towards its destination. Without the fuel of faith, a person with all the knowledge of direction would not be able to get to its goal. The power and  'faith' of the engine works in tandem with the 'reason' of its driver.

Faith is holistic. It is a feeling that arises from deep within and posesses one's entire body and soul. One can have all the faith in the world but if the faculty of reason is weak, there you will find a religious extremist.

Religion has a bad name because of blind followers who does not question 'truths' that are written in supposedly holy books. The wisdom in any scripture can only be distilled by men who have reason honed by years of thinking and reflection. 

Cultivate faith, sharpen your reason. Question faith. Doubt reason. It's the interplay of these two qualities that brings forth wisdom.

A Pilgrim's Project

I'm blogging earlier than usual this week as I'm on leave and have time on my hands. The good thing about not being on project related work is that you don't overwork yourself, which is a nice change for me.

When you are doing a project, the dateline is constantly looming in your head and you are naturally cautious of unexpected problems surfacing at the last moment. So you try to cover as much ground as possible so that you get a heads up of the terrain ahead.  Which means that you spend nights and weekends working and when things get done, you fuss over tiny details obsessively to make them as perfect as possible. That makes project work very stressful at times.

During a project, you are always forced to confront your weaknesses. Which is why a project is like a pilgrimage: it is both a physical journey and a catharsis. During a project there will be times when the obstacles ahead might seem insurmountable but you have to trudge on because there's no other alternative. And then you realize that, it is by the sheer power of persistence that certain problems resolve themselves. Forging ahead, doing the next logical thing may seem sensible in hindsight but when you are a traveller stranded in a strange place, you feel so lost and helpless.  But a pilgrim progresses by having faith and accepting that all obstacles along the path are part and parcel of the spiritual quest itself.

Religion emphasizes faith, which is the power of belief; and when belief is applied not as a kind of smug certainty but as an inner conviction that all obstacles can be overcome if one does not panic and simply stick to the basics of problem-solving.  And what are those basics? It's just asking yourself these questions: Where are you now? Where do you want to go? What is the next small step you could do to move towards your destination?

At any point in time, there's only one small step to make, and not the 10,000 miles that separates you from your destination. Having made that small step, you would check again, if your new vantage point reveals fresh information. If they do, make use of it. Sometimes, as the cliche goes, you need to take a step backwards to move two steps forward. 

A project plan is nothing but a route marked on a piece of map. It sets the general trajectory and provides an estimated time of arrival. But when it comes to the actual journey, the terrain itself would always offer some surprises.  It is the unexpected challenge of the terrain that makes a pilgrimage. And one is not unwise to approach a project as a pilgrim would, with faith and fortitude.

Gardeners of the Mind

It's been a while since I blogged from a cafe but here I am today, hogging a table at the Komugi cafe at a mall nearby. Feeling a lot better today after struggling a bit with the effects of the booster vaccine shot I had on Tuesday.  

My first dose of Sinovac knocked my body off-balance a little bit. And then my second dose felt like nothing as my body had acclimatized to it, I think. But the booster shot I had was Pfizer, something my body had never experienced before. It's no surprise that I felt its side-effects, which was thankfully mild--some headaches and tiredness--but uncomfortable, nonetheless.

Meditation always helps to stabilize the body and mind. Stripped of any spiritual or religious connotations, meditation is simply a good exercise for the mind.  Sometimes I conduct rather morbid thought experiments like: what would happen if I am jailed and put into solitary confinement? Will I be able to cope? This is when I think my meditation habit will come in handy. I'll just look at it as a meditation retreat! No more time pressures. No more trying to squeeze in 10 or 15 minutes during lunchtime. 

When time stretches ahead infinitely, it does something to the mind. It is like transplanting a tree sapling from a pot to the ground, it will start growing to its full potential. Which is why I always feel that I do my best work on weekends and when I am not rushing too much.

Thoughts grow creatively in an optimal fashion when given the time and space to do so. Ideas take time to germinate in the subconscious mind. It's important to plant the seeds first and put in the right soil and fertilizers. Allow them to grow on their own with the right amount of water and sunshine.

Mindfulness is simply the cultivation the mind soil so that it is healthy for the germination of good ideas and solutions. Cultivating a soil means eliminating all contaminants and weeds that hamper the growth of your plants.

Thoughts that are creative grow naturally, driven by its creative impulse. We just need to put them in the right soil. Thoughts intermingle, combine and synthesize into bigger ones on their own.

Pride, ego, fear and irrational obsessions are like weeds that inhibit the organic growth of the mind. They drain away the soil of its nutrients. When these thoughts and feelings arise, acknowledge them for what they are. The way to eliminate them is to allow them to disintegrate under the glare of awareness.

When we tend the garden of the mind carefully and lovingly, beautiful flowers bloom. Life become rich in possibilities. Remember, we are just gardeners. We can only plant seeds, cultivate the soil and water the saplings into maturity. The rest is up to the creative forces of the universe.

The Strange Sweetness of Sedentary Life

Today is Thursday but I'm free because I'm on leave. And there's no better time to start blogging for the week. I'm learning to take the occasional break to recharge myself. And during this slow transition back from a pandemic lock-down to a normal life, I'm also taking the opportunity just to get out of my house.

My life is slightly different nowadays, due to the nature of my job. Workdays are intense with long hours but weekends and leave are completely work-free. Which is different from how I used to work, which is non-stop, but with less intensity.

I used to work in spurts of 2-3 hours. Set up myself at a cafe in between meetings, do some work and then take a walk around, which I think is pretty healthy.  Do I miss the kind of life I used to lead? A little. But you move on. There are pros and cons in being home-bound. One is that you actually spend a lot less in parking, petrol, coffee and other unnecessary expenses. It's true that your electricity bill will be higher if you have the air-conditioning running all day at home, but it is still less than what I'd pay monthly for petrol.

In a way I've moved on from being a nomadic hunter to a sedentary farmer. And it's remarkable how one can get used to different life-styles. I used to feel restless whenever I was not travelling for more than a week. Going to airports, checking into strange hotels and eating alone at restaurants was exciting to me. I loved hotels so much that I stayed in one for two years.

Now I would find it difficult to work as a nomad because I have a good workstation set up at home with two laptops and and two external monitors. And I just replaced my decade old chair with a good quality ergonomic one, complete with headrest and lumbar support. I'm afraid I won't be able to work from a cafe anymore, unless work involves just writing or blogging.

This sedentary life is a cheaper life to lead but it's also less healthy. For one, I walk a lot less--most days I just go downstairs and up again, multiple times a day. Occasionally I would go out to the nearest petrol station to buy my daily copy of the Star. That's one thing that I still enjoy wherever I'm at--reading the morning papers while having breakfast. 

I find enormous happiness in doing these small things: reading in the bathroom, listening to CNN every morning and writing in my journal with my favourite fountain pens. Blogging makes me happy, and this weekly ritual is like sharpening the saw, as Stephen Covey of the 7 Habits fame would put it. 

Now that the weekly sharpening is done, I'm moving on to my next task--my longhand journal. I'm not sure how long this period will last but enjoy it I will--this strange sweetness of sedentary life. 

Mirror of My Mind

I was thinking about what to blog about this week for the past 2 days, and I thought about the subject of anger, because I do see angry people around me all the time. But then, I thought I must have written about this before and true enough, I found this post that I wrote in 2005. Upon rereading it, I thought that it expresses everything that I wanted to say on the subject and like all blog posts of mine, they appear to be better than what I had thought when I first wrote it.

What shall I write about today? I could just ramble on and write about nothing in particular. In many ways, it is the theme of this particular blog--like Seinfeld, which is a show about nothing, just people talking.

So this blog is just about me writing and thinking--writhink.  I could go on rambling and everytime I touch on a topic, I'll just link it to a previous blog post that I had written. Sounds like a great idea. 

In a way, that's how the mind works. Our thoughts wander most of the time and then we just recall back snippets of conversations we had recently, memories of past events, things we hope for and fear and all sorts of random things. This blog is just a mirror of my mind.

Everything potentially links to every other thing. There's like the equivalent of a 6 degrees of separation between ideas in your head. When you read this blog, you'll get ideas in your head too because what I write spawns off ripples of thoughts in your mind. These thoughts reverberate and stirs up other thoughts. Some thoughts grow and become words and action--for action is just the gross level of thinking, something I've written about before, obviously.

The inter-connectedness of thoughts and ideas is what defines you and me. It is the signature of the mind--the intelligence model honed by a lifetime of experience. We view the world through this tinted glass of ideas--ideas which have been shaped by pain and pleasure.

I am too lazy to comment about the latest political events or even technology, which I make my living from. I actually made a conscious decision not to be like so many other blogs that simply rant about current political issues. I have a natural tendency to want to see both sides of the argument and that doesn't make me a very interesting commentator of political events. The most  popular bloggers, vloggers nowadays are those that are partisan and divisive. You need to have an attitude to incite both admirers and haters alike. 

Let's admit it, we all love to have a figure to hate. One could argue that politicians, celebrities and other public figures that we dislike serve a deep-seated psychological need in us by providing the necessary punching bags for us to release our anger.

Love, hatred and anger are subjects I've touched on a lot in all my past blog posts. If there's a recurrent theme, it is that I tend to see everything emotional as "energy". And when I talk about energy, I will always link it to karma, which literally means action.

This blog reflects all the thoughts that swirl in my head constantly and by writing, I am able to distill them to their essence to understanding their deeper meaning and implications. And there you have it: another blog article, that talks about all the other articles that I've written in the past. I will continue to deposit my thoughts here and over time, everything expressed here will be a true reflection of my mind.

Live and Let Love

Thinking back, there have been times in my life when things were so difficult that I did not know how I would get out of the situation. There did not seem to be any way out. 

It was in those difficult times that you get to know yourself. You ask yourself, what is the worst that could happen? Why did it feel so intractable? Was it shame, loss of a loved one, physical danger or financial ruin that made it so difficult?  

You see, everything that I mentioned before is painful simply because of attachment. There's attachment to pride, to someone you love, or to your own physical and financial well-being.  If you let go of them, all pain dissolves away. 

The worst that could happen is that you die. Our attachment to our own existence in this mortal frame is what we are ultimately concerned about. Let's say that you lose everything that you own, your money in the bank and the job that you have now. Everyone you know and love is gone from your life. Would you still have the strength to go on living?

If you say yes, or that you'll have to, for you have no choice, then the rest is simply a willingness to endure pain consciously--the pain of picking up the pieces and starting over again. It takes strength, courage and resilience--qualities that are difficult to summon in times of despair.

Even when you have not encountered such a dire situation before, it's a good thought experiment that one could perform, for it reduces life to its simplest objective: to survive. What does it take for one simply to survive?

There you will come face to face with your karma. You are born because you still have an attachment to life. It's the simplest of attachments: you want to be alive. To survive involves overcoming a lot of everyday obstacles--seeking food, shelter and companionship. It involves a lot of painful work. That is what working out your karma means. 

And if you have the wisdom to take this pain consciously, you do not generate fresh karma. Work and relationships could be difficult things to tackle. If you love someone and think that your possessive love is something very noble, you are simply generating fresh karma with a lot of potential pain.

Love for love's sake. There's pain and pleasure in the act of love. Take them both. There's no future goal when you love someone. It is not to have kids and a beautiful home. That's a by product of love which you could express gratitude for, if they do materialize. The act of love itself is selfless and goalless.

To live is to love. Love is an energy that emanates from your being. Just spread it around like the selfless sunlight that nourishes the flora, like the cool breeze that brings relief during a hot afternoon, like the gentle ocean waves that lap on the shore. 

Think again of that difficult situation that you have. What attachment is it that's holding you back and making things so difficult? Let go and fall back into your natural state of love. Then you'll know that love and life are inseparable.

The Sword of Fame

Time for me to relax and allow my mind to breathe for a while because it's Friday and I'm finally alone here in my apartment with no work to worry about. Yes, I'm on leave today and I spent the afternoon just now catching up with Myra.

I'm happy that she's making some headway in the entertainment industry, appearing frequently on television, hosting various programs, occasionally starring in music videos and dramas. I advise her to be not too agitated over some of the difficult people she encounters every now and then but to focus on gaining more experience for herself. All experiences, whether they are pleasant or unpleasant are valuable and help to build character.

She is also earning some decent income as a social influencer. I'm always advising her to be mindful of what she does in public as being a public figure opens one up to all sorts of unwarranted scrutiny. The fact that someone can earn money from a fan-base of so-called followers is because, there's a certain 'insanity' innate in people that is being exploited here for commercial gains.

For the masses to pour so much adulation on certain personalities based on his or her looks or even talent is a kind of insanity. Think about it: why should we scream and yell, behave like a lunatic when we sight our favourite idols? Why should we pay so much money to possess certain memorabilia associated with these individuals? 

There's some kind of psychological hangup here that finds its expression in the form of celebrity worship. It's true that there's nothing wrong in admiring the beauty, talent or performance of certain entertainment or sports personalities because they give us pleasure and perhaps even knowledge. But why do we go crazy over them as if they are some kind of super-human that exist on a super-terrestrial plane? Why are their private lives of interest and concern to us? 

Decent human beings do not pry into the private affairs of their neighbours and friends. Why is there a paparazzi industry that exists just to cater to this strange sickness of a large portion of our society?

Celebrities make a lot of money because we are insane enough to pay a premium for a sight of their good looks or talent. Even if they are so talented in a particular field, why should we pay so much to gawk at them? 

So when celebrities complain that they do not have private lives and it is not all bed and roses after all for being famous, they don't really get my sympathy. They are where they are now because of the very perversion which they are complaining about.

Idolization of famous personalities has never made anyone a better person. One could of course claim that the success of one's idol motivates one to excel. But if it is mere inspiration we are seeking, how do we explain our hyper-reaction to their every appearance in the public arena? If a fellow co-worker is a super-performer in some field, do we ask for her autograph? 

If we simply wish to learn from the best, we will watch, take notes and emulate, not drool at their sight. Psychologist have theorized about the underlying cause of this human behaviour. Some say it could simply be compensation for some deficit in the fanatical fans themselves. Is there something that's lacking in their lives that they seek to over-react to everything about their idols?

Perhaps it's simply normal human behaviour that's innate within us, akin to mob behaviour.  Is there any harm to it? Maybe there's none at all. Celebrity culture and idol worship is simply part of the fun of everyday human interaction. We enjoy gossiping about the people we know, so what's wrong with prying into the lives of the rich and famous? 

This is what I try to tell Myra every time I see her. There is nothing wrong in seeking fame and fortune. In fact, I even encouraged her to do so. If popular success attracts you, go for it. Everyone has a calling and that is the path that will be most rewarding spiritually, even though there could be a lot of pain that goes with it. Your soul seeks the best path for its healing.

When one is famous, one should not complain about being treated unfairly by the masses. Their insanity can be both a boon and a bane. You just need to prepared for it and to deal with its adverse effects. Remember, the sword of fame cuts both ways.

Collosseum of the Dead

As we ease our Covid-19 restrictions, I fear that the number of infections will go up dramatically. What more with a state election coming up in Malacca. But what can we do about it? We have no choice but to resume normal life and learn to live with the virus.

It's now customary of hearing people dying of complications caused by Covid-19. The inevitability of death is something that we have to learn to accept. None of us: you, me and all the people that you see around you now will still be around in another 100 years. All the beauty and pride, the smiles, the laughter and the banter will be gone without a trace. 

It is painful to lose a loved one. When we love someone, we have an emotional bond attached to the person as if it is a physical cord itself that ties our souls together. When one dies, these cords will be severed, with a pain that's akin to a limb being amputated.

All pain however fades away with time if wounds are allowed to heal. The first pre-requisite for healing is simply letting go. That is often the hardest thing to do. We feel a pang of guilt, as if we are betraying the dead by 'forgetting' about their existence.

The death of two of my friends due to Covid-19 was a great shock to me. But now I'll have to continue living, cherishing the good times we had--the joy and banter we exchanged are now but a beautiful memory, constantly present to nourish the future. 

We can only go forward and the endpoint of this journey is death. To those who are religious, there could be an afterlife where one is judged for one's deeds in this life; to others there could a transition to another birth. Whatever it is, what matters most is now. This very moment.

This moment that stands on the memory of the departed, ushering the living to their inevitable end. We live and that's all we know. I write these words, and that's all I could do. So I do it with as much heart and earnestness that I could muster, for it is what defines me. 

There are more people who have lived and died than there are those who are alive today. So we live surrounded by ghosts, like gladiators performing in the collosseum of the dead.

All we can do is fight the good fight. Fight with the wisdom accumulated by those who have come before us. It is the best way to honour them. And in time, we too shall depart, hopefully leaving behind some deeds or knowledge that could guide those who shall come after us.

The Fluctuating Field of Feelings

Another week, another Friday off. I'm looking forward to the long weekend because I'll be working continuously the whole of next week when everyone else goes on leave.

I didn't have breakfast today, opting to go for lunch instead, which I had here in my apartment in Cyberjaya a moment ago. Now I'm just enjoying my coffee while I type these lines and figure out the subject of this week's blog article.

This morning a single phrase keeps repeating in my mind: "existence is energy". I remember that I wrote about this recently, and upon searching my blog, indeed I had an article called Existence is just Energy.  Perhaps I want to elaborate more on what I mean by this.

I'm going to go a step further by saying, existence is a feeling. Now, we know what it is like to feel something. You feel cold. You feel dejected. You feel touched by someone. There's a feeling, that is the sum total of all your bodily electro-chemical process inside which you recognize.  The feeling varies from moment to moment in time. There's a quality and identity to that feeling.

Yes, but what is the point that I'm trying to make?  You know you are alive when you are feeling something. And feeling means receiving and reacting to the world. I almost wanted to write "reacting to the external world" but that would be wrong. The so-called reaction is exactly what we mean by that feeling. It is a fluctuation in the field, of which our individual existence is defined.

So life is a continuous feeling. If I may paraphrase Descartes: I feel, therefore I am. At any point in time, the state of your existence is that feeling that you feel and you should treat it as nothing more than a reading of the energy dial. When you meditate, this is what you are constantly aware of, moment by moment. You are tracing the graph of existence as it is being drawn.

When you see that feeling as it is, it is all there is. You are not a physical being feeling heat or cold, anger or elation, but just being a point in the energetic continuum. You have no idea which way it will go next but all you have to do is observe and maintain your balance as you are being swept along by the waves of this energy.

Again, all this sounds like mystical new age mumbo-jumbo. This is what I have a propensity of doing: spouting paragraph after paragraph of such nonsense. I take that as a compliment. They are all non sense--not to be experienced with the usual senses. It is what underlies your senses. You know it when you feel it.

When you say that you know or you understand, again it's a feeling. And if you see it clearly, one feeling differs from another in terms of quality but they are all neutral. We cannot say one wave causes another, or is superior to another. They are part of that oceanic field of cause and effect.

All of art is nothing but feelings captured in various physical medium. And if you feel something after reading these lines, then I've made my point. The moment it is felt, it becomes a part of your existence. And there's nothing more that needs to be said.

The Comfort of Certainty

I'm feeling very comfortable here today in my apartment in Cyberjaya. I've decided to spent the rest of the day doing some much needed housekeeping  after I'm done with this week's blog article.  As always, I'll have to decide what to write about as I go along.

I know of another thing that gives us a lot of comfort: certainty. We humans are fearful of the unknown. What happens after death? That's the greatest unknown, which makes us feel extremely uncomfortable. Is there life after death? We want to know desperately. We want some kind of certainty that death is not the end of everything.

All that is very understandable. We are humans and we have a common experience and expectation of what life is and should be. Life is good. Death is bad, because it is the end of everything we like here. We want whatever little happiness and love that we have in this brief existence to continue. We fervently wish that if a life after death exists, it has to be a better one, without the suffering that makes this life so difficult at times.

Uncertainty makes us edgy. Having some kind of flaky answer to the ultimate questions is better than admitting ignorance. You know what I'm getting--my favourite bugaboo: religion. I do not dislike religion, only their institutions and man-made doctrines, which on serve to numb and exploit our worst fears, never elevating us to greater understanding and transcendence, which its hidden truth is capable of revealing.

We need some figure of authority to tell us that if we recite this prayer or perform certain rituals, some good or blessing will come to us. The local gangster up there will ensure our safety after we have obediently paid the protection fee. Our susceptibility to religious dogma suggest some deeper psychological hang-up or fear that needs to be worked out. But instead of healing, we opted for numbing--something which religious doctrines and dogma provide with their false sense of certainty.

Those preachers and priests want you to believe that once you have accepted their faith, you belong to an exclusive club of favoured souls, whose safety is guaranteed in the hereafter. They talk so much about the hereafter as if they have been there and back, like tourists recounting their budget tour experience in some exotic far-flung country.

There's certainly comfort in such certainty and exclusivity. If that makes your life more bearable, by all means, go ahead. But do not be deluded into believing that you have the answers to everything. Allow others to find their versions of the truth, which may or may not be better than yours. 

I've blogged before about the virtue of keeping an open mind. It's alright to say, I don't know. Of course we don't know. That's why we are living: to slowly discover more and more. We'll not know until we come to our deaths.  It'll be interesting to find out if your membership, which was chiefly determined by the circumstance of your birth, qualifies you admission to the Club and its perpetual pleasure parties.

There's certainly comfort in certainty, but not at the price of ignorance.  The path of the pilgrim is fraught with uncertainties. It is the challenge of uncertainty that illuminates the mind and offer glimpses of the real afterlife. 

You can ask: how do I know this?  I certainly don't. But I do know uncertainty and its many discomforts. And strangely, there's a certain comfort in that.

The Scents of Change

I spent a few years working in Singapore and those were among the happiest years of my life. I had a good job which allowed me to travel regularly across the Asia Pacific region and beyond. Singapore was a great place to live, even though I lived simply, in a rented HDB room with an Indian family.

I think my landlord loved me as a tenant because I was travelling half the time and barely bothered him. But whenever I was back in Singapore, I spent a lot of time reading in my room, surfing the Net on my then state-of-the-art ADSL connection. I didn't have a TV, so I watched Channel News Asia through the Internet--a great novelty at that time in the nineties.

I watched a lot of movies at cinemas across the city and spent time loitering at Borders and Kinokuniya book stores. I bought so many books and audio-books during those years. I took the bus to work and was perfectly happy doing so, listening to audiobook cassettes on my Walkman.

But when the opportunity arose to leave the city and base myself in Jakarta, I did not hesitate. I've always sought new experiences and working in a new city had always proved to be interesting. Prior to that, I had a 3-month stint in Menlo Park, California. Being in Silicon Valley during the height of the dotcom boom was quite exciting.  Even now the smell of Eucalyptus would remind me of those carefree days, driving along the 101 Highway and loitering around the suburbs of Palo Alto and Mountain View.

My days in Jakarta are well-documented in this blog as I started blogging during my second year there. Interesting though it was to live there, it was not an ideal place to live permanently for the pollution there was bad. 

I am reminiscing fondly about these foreign experiences of mine because they are such a contrast to the life that I'm living now in Malaysia. The pandemic has made me even more of a hermit. And the strange thing about it is that I do not seem to mind that much.

What has become of me? I guess we all change. Life itself changes. When we know that change is inherent in Nature, we don't cling on to things that much. We enjoy every experience as they come along and allow them to go as easily as they had come.  Every experience makes you a better person and one should express gratitude for it.

The smell of kretek will always remind me of Jakarta as Eucalyptus pines do of my time in the Bay Area of California. The pandemic has brought changes to every one's life. More changes will come for sure. For better or worse, let's embrace it. For change itself is the stuff of life. 

The Virtues of an Empty Mind

I have a lot of leave to finish off before the end of the year and so today I've decided to take the day off. I do not like to take a long break because it is usually very difficult to get back into the rhythm of work after that.  

I don't get to spend much time here in my apartment in Cyberjaya but today is one of those rare occasions that I get to write a blog article from here. Despite the poor maintenance in my condominium complex, it is still a very quiet and relaxing place to be. To sit here in my home office, staring at the foliage of trees around me puts me in the mood for contemplation.

Contemplation usually involves ruminations of both the past and the future.  To take an event, a snippet of a conversation, an expression of the face or a scene that imprints in the memory and play it repeatedly in the mind, in an attempt to distill its hidden meaning. That's what the mind does constantly.  How do we prevent that?

Can the mind really be blank at all? Of what use is an 'empty' mind? 

We are seduced by thoughts that are nothing but the drama of likes and dislikes. We have an opinion on everything. Social media encourages that, amplifying that to a degree hitherto unseen. The outer world is merely an exaggerated world of the inner one. Ideas and opinions shape the world at large. The mightier the thought, the greater the effect it has on the world, for better or worse.

An 'empty' mind is a mind that is a wellspring of harmonious ideas--ideas that are part of the naturally evolving universe. When the mind is empty, we peer into the greater mind of the universe. Our thoughts are but little eddies in the larger ocean of truth. Only allowing these local eddies of ruminations to subside, are we able to tap into these mighty oceanic swells.

A mind devoid of petty thoughts becomes a vehicle of expression for the universe--a fertile soil for the growth and development or artistic works. We all love art because art is nothing but creations that mirrors the impulses of the cosmos.  

We are part of the universe. Our minds are nothing but the universe being conscious of itself. And when it does, it needs to know that it is reflecting on its own image. An empty mind is nothing but the egoic mind standing aside, to let the real mind reveal itself in all its glory.

Hark, the universe itself whispers within. If only you are willing to listen, with an empty mind.

Master of the Moment

I am writing this on a Friday night after finishing my work for the week. It is a good and relaxing feeling to have the whole weekend ahead. And I'm getting a head start by writing my blog article now.

You usually begin the week with apprehension on a Sunday evening, bracing yourself for another busy Monday with all the bustle, mini crises, false alarms and emergencies that will inevitably pepper the week. But you always emerge at the end of it feeling quite alright. It's not that bad after all. And there goes another work week.

No problem is as big as they initially appear to be.  Once you are willing to stick your toe into it, the water is not too cold nor too hot for you. You'll be able to adapt. Just take one step at a time. Take one do-able step and imagine that's all you need to do. And when it is done, you'll be buoyed and the momentum will carry you forward to the next doable step. That's how you progress--like what the Chinese say about the journey of 10,000 miles.

It is like this blog article too. I always click the New Post button not knowing what I'm supposed to write. But I'm always able to write one sentence. That will bring me to the next one and so on. Without looking too far ahead, things become more manageable. You are all right, right now and you can certainly do that one thing, right now. 

That is also the philosophy behind mindfulness. Be aware of what you are experiencing at this very moment. Acknowledge it, and the next moment comes. There is no tension, no anticipation nor reflection. It is just pure awareness--taking in each moment like a frame from a movie reel. All drama ceases to exist. Life has no crises, only different moments, each on its own is what it is--a quantum of experience, neither good nor bad.

All judgement comes in retrospect. It is a blessing and curse that we are able to recollect the past and anticipate the future. A blessing because it is how humans progress--learning from our past experiences and using them to tackle the future. A curse because we can now compare, between good times and bad ones, between ourselves and others and start fearing for threats that are unlikely to happen.

We begin to live not in the moment but jump back and forth between the past and the future. That's the recipe for an unhappy life. The entire lesson of the past can be learned in the present moment--if you are aware of it in its entirety. 

Now pay attention: this moment is the sum of your past and the seed of your future. Take it as sweetly as you possibly can. If you can master the moment, you have nothing to fear in life, because no matter how bad it is, it is just this moment, and that's all there is, and it is all that matters for the moment.

Reflections on A Reading Life

It's been a while since I've been able to work from my home office in Cyberjaya but today happens to be my day off and because the inter-district travel ban has been lifted, I am able to visit my apartment there. I'm now typing these words from the comforts of my man-cave.

The good thing about being here is that almost my entire book collection is available. It's like being reunited with my memory bank. Each book is a piece of random access memory. Most of everything I know came from these books and if I need to recollect a certain passage or revisit a certain idea by a particular author, I am able to find it here in my shelves.

I wish I am a child again, being able to spend an entire school holiday reading. Are there such children anymore who would be delighted to while away his or her time perusing books rather than being glued to his phone or computer screen?

Before the miracle of the Internet and the World-Wide Web, the only source of knowledge was books. Which was why my first investment when I could afford to do so after working for a few years was to purchase a set of Encyclopedia Britannica. This set still occupies prime space in my library shelves. It is a milestone in my quest for knowledge and understanding.

And that's all I've ever wanted to do. To know and understand. To have all my childhood and childish questions answered. A quest that had lasted an entire lifetime and is still on-going. Is that too much to ask for? 

My collection of books here is the result of this perhaps quixotic quest--the belief that the universe could be understood by the humble human mind and that there's nothing nobler than the pursuit of knowledge.

This belief has coloured everything that I do.  I was just flipping through a paperback book from the shelf with the title Bohemia written by Herbert Gold. And on the title page, I had written my name and the date and place where it was purchased: 5th April 1994, San Francisco.  And inside the book, I found a card which I had used as a bookmark: it was an unused breakfast coupon from the Westin Resort, Macau, dated 7th December 2000. 

Every book is like a time capsule. Not only do the contents of the book enlighten the mind, the experience of buying, reading and carrying the book with me on my travels are all woven into those pages. I often like to slip pieces of receipts into the books that I'm reading. And inside this book I found on a receipt for a drink I had at the American Chili's Grill and Bar Restaurant at Boat Quay, Singapore, dated 11th April 1998. I had carried this book with me to Boat Quay and read it there.

This collection of books is my entire life. And I'm still accumulating them. The other day, another book I had ordered from Book Depository arrived through regular mail:  In Court and Kampong by Hugh Clifford and I immediately scribbled the date of its arrival: 6th of September 2021. 

When I'm done reading a book, I would also note down the start and finish dates on the last page--using pen and ink to mark my territory like what a dog does with urine.

Of what use are all these books and supposed knowledge that I've gathered? How does it help me in becoming a better person if not a successful one?

Honestly, that has never been my goal when it comes to reading. It is like asking of what use it is to consume food. It is simply a basic necessity of living, without which I would have died a mental death. 

And here I am back again in my apartment of books, pulling out a piece of my life from here and there--every book reflecting back at me, like illuminating facets of a diamond. It's the reflections of a life lived and examined. and I know no other way of doing it.

The Contentment of a Tree

I was having breakfast just now, at home, listening to a Haydn piano sonata, while reading the day's newspapers. I used to have my meals everywhere but with the pandemic, I'm marooned at home ninety-nine percent percent of the time. I'm not exactly an outdoor person--the type who loves outdoor sports and activities, but I like being outside, feeling the heat and sunshine and watching people go about their lives.

I used to be as free as a bird--floating high above, flitting from branch to branch, in Shelley's words, a "scorner of the ground". But now I'm like a tree, rooted in one place.  But it's not too bad to be a tree with a wide canopy, providing shelter to creatures below, with roots radiating out into the surrounding, savouring its precious nutrients, while receiving the blessings of sunlight and rain from above. 

A solitary tree, sturdy and strong in facing the vicissitudes of weather is a good metaphor for the kind of life I'm living now. Or at least that's how I strive to be. What a beautiful machinery a tree is! It is solar-powered and only uses what's available around it, accepting its limitations, and growing around obstacles. It is subtly insistent, its roots occasionally piercing into concrete, if required. If we subject a tree to stop motion photography, we'll realize it is actually a moving object--only that it lives on a different speed from what we are used to. These foliage fiends are models of patience--it plots slowly, stretching branches and aligning leaves to reach sunlight, and silently burrows its roots towards live-giving hints of water.

A tree lives in the moment. It accepts what it is given and makes do with it. It satisfies its yearning for more by simply making the tiny adjustments required to realign its growth. If it is pruned by some fastidious gardener, it obediently remolds itself into its masters vision of perfection--a pet and performer of infinite patience.

A tree can die. Sometimes violently, being chopped down by humans or struck by lightning. At other times, it goes away gently, withering in a drought, its leaves and branches decomposing back into the soil, recycling its nutrients back to its community of fauna. And that's how we should all live. We are given a moment in time. We do what we can and we return back what we had momentarily borrowed. We are merely passing participants in the pageant of life.

And what a beautiful thing life is. A tree embodies this beauty to utter perfection. I have been a bird of passage, but now I am a tree, sitting in contentment in the fields, taking it all in: a host and witness to the fecundity, above, below and around me.

The Grace and Glory of Gratitude

Typing these words on my computer while listening to Beethoven's 'Razumovsky' String Quartet. All I need to be happy is a laptop with an internet connection and all these simple joys of life come streaming in, like sunshine.

I don't pay much for my broadband connection, opting for the cheapest package available which is 89 ringgit a month for 30 Mbps. This connection is the umblical cord that provides nourishment to my soul. It is the key to all the greatest treasures of humanity through the centuries. Music, art, literature and access to all the best teachers on every subject in the world--everything is available at the click of the mouse.

What I feel is a deep sense of gratitude. With this alone, I could spend a thousand years in a cave, savouring the experience of mankind through the ages. I don't life in a posh neighbour nor have a large house furnished with designer furniture, but I do have a shelter, and sufficient food, and a good internet connection. The pandemic only makes us realize how little we all need to be really happy.

 Let's express gratitude for all the things we already have and not fret over things we don't. If you have a roof over your head and food to fill your stomach everyday, what more do you want?  Perhaps success; the kind of success defined by society: a social standing and being recognized as such and having the means to live life lavishly--the overseas holidays, the fine-dining and the designer clothes.  The good life. But for many, the pandemic has yanked all that away, reducing them to the bare necessities of life. But are you not grateful that, at the very least, you have that?

You are alright, right now. That's a mantra l have learned to tell myself, every time that I'm being anxious over something that is not exactly going my way. Well, at the very least I'm alive and at this moment, healthy. And if I care to really think about it: happy. Happiness is a simple thing. You are at ease and in possession of all your faculties, and being aware that you are, here and now, present and able to express gratitude for it.

Is that a difficult thing to do? If it is not, then it is not difficult to be happy. Happiness is simply gratitude. Gratitude is appreciating all that you have now and being aware that you are doing so. This awareness of the moment, this acknowledgement of the now, this presence of mind, body and soul--this is the divine state of grace and gratitude. 

The true prayer is a prayer of gratitude--of acknowledging one's fragility in the world and having made it so far with so little. It is with the grace of the universe that you live and thrive in this tiny sliver of space and time. When you see and feel that deep down in your soul, then you have been touched by the grace and glory of gratitude.

I Write, Therefore I Am

A pile of rocks ceases to be a rock when somebody contemplates it with the idea of a cathedral in mind

- Antoine De Saint-Exupery (French Aviator, Writer).

I'm typing these lines on a Saturday night. It has been a full and busy week as usual and I spent my Saturday as usual shopping for food and groceries in the morning and jogging at the park in the evening. I also write in my journal with my array of fountain pens. I also have a collection of inks of different colours ranging from the usual black, blue, red to more exotic colours from Diamine with fancy names like Claret, Green Umber, Steel Blue and Apple Glory. Writing longhand is a completely different experience from typing on a keyboard. You literally stroke your mind with the nib of the pen to tease out your innermost thoughts.

What's the benefit of writing in a journal? My main motivation for doing so is to understand myself better. When you put thoughts on paper, especially with a fountain pen, you slow down the pace of your thinking and allow the mind to breathe. Scribbling your thoughts on paper is like a mathematician working out a complex problem by first capturing it in a set of equations before working them out to their logical conclusion.

The pen acts like a seismograph--registering the minute movements of your thoughts. When you capture the stirring of your emotions on paper, you see them in their true colours. You feel their vibrations at the tip of your pen. Every nuance of your inner motivations are captured in the variation of your ink strokes on paper. I just love watching a wet fountain pen making marks across the surface of the paper. To me, that is how God created the universe--by writing out the Word.

Writing is spiritual. The act of drawing lines on a piece of paper that reflect the promptings of your mind is a piece of performance art.   You know your writing has quality when you've bridged the gap between thoughts in the head and written sentences on paper.  Writing longhand with a fountain pen helps in the process. The pen is a transducer of thoughts -- tapping the signals of the mind and amplifying them on paper, to be analyzed, read and disseminated, where they will trigger further thinking in better minds, influencing events in the real world.

I've called this process writhink.  Writing physicalizes thinking, allowing the signal of your thoughts to find their true expression in the external world. When you write what Hemingway calls a true sentence, you know that the sentence expresses the thought in the best possible way. And there's nothing more to say about it. That's one brick in the cathedral you're building in your mind. And you move on to the next true sentence.

Well, I am no Hemingway nor Exupery. But I write, therefore I am.