The Disillusionment of the Illusory Self

I'm happy that the madness of the two large festivals, Christmas and Chinese New Year is past. The malls are deserted once more; it's that lull between festive seasons. Vendors are preparing for their next assault--the coming Ramadan month culminating in Aidil Fitri celebrations. 

I'm here at a cafe in the mall, enjoying the relative peace and quiet. The weather has been rainy for the past few days, causing massive flooding, especially in Johor. My apartment roof is leaking and I had to spent the day catching the dripping rainwater in plastic pails and trays. 

All material things fall apart and our everyday lives is simply an endless series of maintenance tasks: making sure our frail human bodies, our cars and shelters are properly functioning. But we should not be too daunted by that. Drawing on my gymnasium metaphor of the world, such obstacles are there to give us a good workout. You don't complain about about the heaviness of the barbell and weights if your intention of going to the gym is to build muscle strength.

We always end up stronger with every challenge we face in life. But we also have to be aware of how much weight we are able to reasonably lift or risk injuring ourselves. We want to stretch ourselves so that the muscles are stimulated to grow but at the same time, we must not over-do it or we'll tear some muscles. The right technique is also essential.

In life, we must also learn the technique of handling any difficult situation so that we do not see them as unwelcome.  Acknowledge the challenge; tackle it with the right approach and mentality and it too shall pass.

Mortal life can be tough. We are thrust into a course, not of our own choosing. We do not get to pick our parents, nor the place or circumstance into which we are born. Yet we have to embrace them. 'You' are actually defined by your circumstance. It is your unique upbringing and environment that defines your Self. 

The Self, as the Buddhist like to say, is an illusion, because it is not something tangible. It is merely the eye of the hurricane and for a brief moment in earth time, you manifest into existence, only to disappear again into that ocean of energy.

Ephemeral though it may be, the hurricane has enormous strength and can wreck everything in its path. It is this clash between air and earth that dissipates the hurricane's energy. Though energetically, the existence of a human on earth is similar to the lifecycle of a hurricane, there are differences. 

Humans, for example create and procreate. We build things like skyscrapers but destroy the environment in the process, and we also spawn off more human beings to preserve our precious lineage. We invest a lot of our energy in the perpetuation of an illusory ideal.

What is this illusory ideal? It is our concept of the Self. It is like a hurricane which suddenly thinks that it has a soul and it wants its identity to last forever. The monuments we build for the future is a  chunk of our time and energy, preserved, only to be mowed down, inevitably by Time. Even the mightiest empire collapses one day because entropy has to increase.

But let's not be disillusioned by such a bleak view of the future. Ironically, this disillusionment is only of concern to the illusory Self. Perhaps when the Self sees that absurdity of it all, then everything becomes clear. The hurricane subsides, revealing the vastness of the sky and the radiance of the ever-present sun.

The Magic of Memory

Oh lift me from the grass! 

I die! I faint! I fail! 

Let thy love in kisses rain 

On my lips and eyelids pale. 

- from Lines to an Indian Air by Percy Blythe Shelley

Saturday is my day to be alone, to just sit back at a cafe and reflect in words--which becomes my blog article for the week. Writing is a way of processing thoughts. I write to think. And I also adhere to the principle that, "if you did not write it down, it didn't happen". 

The internet has now become the human civilisation's collective memory. This blog could well turn out to be the only trace of my existence on this place, when I'm no longer around. Not that it is that important to leave a so-called legacy behind. Existence is much bigger than what we leave behind during our short stint on this tiny planet called Earth, third from an insignificant star, which we call the Sun.

It is interesting that Socrates was very much against the written word. Knowledge and virtue to him is not something static like words on paper. Things written down cannot answer back and is prone to misinterpretation. Socrates believed in the dialectic method--the constant questioning and reexamining of one's statements and thoughts. A a virtuous person is one who lives that. 

Ironically, we owe this knowledge to Socrates's student Plato, who, thankfully did not follow his mentor's belief and wrote down all of his teachings for posterity. But we still need to give some thought to Socrates's argument that memory is not something passive but an active process of learning. When you remember something, it is internalised and it becomes a part of you. You can't claim that when all you have are books in your personal library. You have to at least assimilate what you learn into your thinking process.

Things that you remember are what you'll bring up in any ad-hoc conversation with friends. Even when you write, you are also channelling and modifying sentence patterns that you've encountered before and internalised. When something is remembered, you can be assured that your brain has changed. 

Having said that, it is also worth mentioning that remembering alone does not in itself constitutes wisdom or even knowledge. Simple regurgitation of facts only makes you an efficient database. Wisdom, as I argued in a recent blog article is like a trained AI model. Facts and anecdotes are just the icing on the cake. To recall them, you need the necessary hooks and connections in the brain honed through regular thinking and introspection. 

I can recall fragments of poems by Shelly, Byron and Wordsworth and that enriches my life tremendously. "I die!, I faint!, I fall!". I was surprised when my father suddenly uttered this line during those difficult days when he was suffering from the neuro-degenerating effects of Parkinson's disease. I had casually asked him about his school days and that triggered his memory of an English teacher who had drilled them on those beautiful lyrical poems found in Palgrave's famous Golden Treasury anthology. That was a magical moment for me--in a flash my dad and I were one, sharing an inseparable bond.

Music triggers recollections too. I can always feel the morning sunshine when I was sitting in the garden outside my childhood home, whenever I hear strains of Mozart's piano sonata in C minor, K457 because my neighbour's daughter was practising that piece constantly for her ABRSM exam. 

The replicants in the movie Blade Runner clung to their implanted memories as a kind of prove that they are real. And in the famous death scene, Rutger Hauer's character, Roy Batty lamented how all his memories will be lost, "like tears in the rain". 

Things we remember constitute a great part of who we are. When memories are recollected, we bring back the essence of the very moment--the smell, the sights and the sound of the experience; and that I think is what life, or at least a great part of what Socrates's examined life, is all about.

Free and Flowing

I'm back with more of my ramblings. Again, I'm just going to go with the flow.  Hmm..."the flow". Perhaps that will be the subject of our discussion today. What is flow?

In psychology the flow state is a well-known subject. It's also known as being "in the zone". People who perform challenging mental and physical tasks like sportsmen know that when you are in the zone, you are performing effortlessly, which total absorption of body and mind. You are relaxed and yet comfortably challenged at the same time to drive yourself towards peak performance.

Writers know this well too. Sometimes words and sentences just write themselves; at other times, you face the dreaded writer's block. Are words flowing out effortlessly for me now while writing this article? Not exactly. And I know why: it's because I'm not fully focussed. 

I am half thinking of the cleaning chores that I need to do after this. There's a bit of a mess in my apartment caused by leakage, which I'm chasing the building management to fix. And I'm also cognisant of the remaining time I have to get this article out, perform the cleaning before I set off for my dinner appointment at 7pm.

I'm certainly not in the flow now. The mind has to be undistracted for one to achieve flow state. But I've also trained myself over the years to produce reasonably good work, even when I'm not in the best state of mind. When flow happens, that is a bonus; if it doesn't, no matter. My run-of-the-mill effort should be better than average.

It helps when one is completely relaxed about one's task. Having a 'don't-care' attitude is sometimes good, for people who are highly-strung perfectionists. Just let go. No one is going to die because someone spotted a tiny mis-spelling or grammar mistake in your email. In all likelihood, people would have forgotten about you by the next mouse-click.

To your own ego, you are very important. To other people, they are equally self-centered, preoccupied with how they look or appear to others. You are only important to them in-so-far as it enhances their own ego. Everyone is in the same boat. No one is superior to anyone else. Everyone has their own phobias and peccadilloes. 

So just relax and do what you are supposed to do. And it'll be good enough. If it isn't, it's no big deal. As long as you have the right attitude to take it as a feedback for further improvement, you'll be fine. You'll only get better. Isn't that a comforting thought?

Fear, insecurity, pride and hidden agendas are things that inhibit flow. When you do things without expecting anything in return, you'll achieve better performance. Of course this is easier said than done. But saying and affirming, makes the doing easier. You will reduce the gap between thought and action. When that happens, you are free and flowing!

The Way of Wisdom

I'm grateful for having the opportunity to write in this blog every week. It may seem like an insignificant thing but writing is like exercise to me. It helps keep the mind fit. And a fit mind is always sharp, alert and wise.

The wise part needs a bit of elaborating. We know how to acquire knowledge. We read books, watch Youtube videos or attend courses. We gather a lot of information and assimilate them with whatever we know. But when does knowledge become wisdom? What is wisdom?

A striker who knows how to anticipate when his team-mate is going to make a through-pass to him and times his run just in time to beat the offside trap has a kind of wisdom--an intuitive knowing that comes without thinking. It's the result of having played a huge number of matches, the ability to sense the weight and trajectory of a pass and knowing how each and every individual player habits are and then processing all of these information in a fraction of a second, intuitively. 

Wisdom comes from having a honed model inside the head and body, the kind that AI has, trained by billions of pieces of information; and when a new set of data arrives, you have the model to generate the predicted output. Wisdom is not the if-then-else type of thinking. That's brute-force logic and intelligence. Wisdom is taking an input and passing information through the neural network to generate an output. We don't exactly know how we derive the answer but we do know that every bit of information that we had digested before, contributed to that instantaneous answer.

Am I being over-the-top now by saying that AI actually has wisdom? Well, not the kind we have...yet. But it's the same process. Instantaneous knowing and having an immediate feel of a situation--this is what we normally call experience. Experience is nothing more than training data. The more we have the better the model.

Can two persons exposed to the same knowledge and experience acquire the same wisdom? No, because no two persons start with the same initial conditions. Genes determine the type of brain and body we have. Our individual learning machineries are wired differently. Knowing what you are good at, and allowing yourselves to be trained in the field and subject that you have an aptitude for, certainly helps.

That is why I think work is good. The more data you process, the better your intelligence model is.  Or shall I say, wisdom model? Wisdom is simply intellectual instinct. Our anthropocentric bias makes us believe that machines can never be conscious and there's that magical quality in humans called consciousness and wisdom that will forever be elusive from them. But think again, AI is making us understand ourselves better. Maybe we are just like them, with the added benefit of locomotion, having more sensors and a life-time of data?

I have no qualms about sharing this planet with machines who will become wiser than us. Maybe at some point we could be expendable to them. But that again is an anthropocentrism that anyone with wisdom shall be able to transcend.

A Win-Win World

Today, I'm taking a break from work. That means I'm now loitering at a cafe with my laptop, book, journal and pens. It's good to be able to sit back on a Friday afternoon and reflect on the work week that has gone by.

I've been thinking a bit on the people I deal with on a daily basis at work and am grateful that all my colleagues are extremely friendly and helpful. I've always enjoyed interacting with people because everyone is unique and interesting. Even difficult ones. This is because I treat people like interactive books. There's always something you can learn from someone you interact with. 

If I encounter a difficult person, I would try to empathise with his or her situation. Perhaps the person had had to deal with the same question and situation for the umpteenth time that day and felt absolutely tired of it. How could you help to alleviate the person's situation? What could you say or do to make the person feel better about the interaction? Humility and empathy always help. It is childish to exert privilege or authority. Everyone is just trying to get by and life can be rough sometimes.

Humour, if tastefully and subtly injected, always helps. Why take things so seriously? To me, work is not a career; it is simply a way to work out your karma. Every difficulty situation you encounter is an opportunity for you to address some of your own weaknesses. A situation is difficult because some of your weaknesses are exposed. Overcoming it will allow you to acquire the skill to handle it with ease in the future. So be thankful that you have your 'bugs' highlighted to you.

It is true that sometimes we feel a sense of injustice at work. For example, if a colleague takes credit for the good and hard work that you have done. He or she gets the praised by the bosses and perhaps even gets promoted because of it. How would you handle this?

My attitude towards these things is very simple.  I have complete trust in karma. What's due to you will come, at the right time, in the right form. If others get credit for your work now, it's simply because you are not meant to have it now. There's probably a bigger prize down the road. In any case, my attitude towards work is never to expect any praise or reward. Those things are bonuses that, if they do come, one should receive them with gratitude and humility. Not with egoistic pride nor a sense of entitlement.

I've mentioned it before in previous blog articles that the true reward of work is work itself. Every time we work, we receive its reward immediately. Whenever we exercise our knowledge and skill to handle a task, we strengthen our mastery of it, our knowledge is reinforced; the neural network in our brain expands and strengthens its existing connections. It's another bicep curl. You come out a fitter person. That's your reward and no one can take that away from you.

You can never lose in work, if you approach it with a sincere desire to learn. Every difficult person you encounter is a test of your skill and creativity. Tackle it with grace and gratitude. You will never come out a loser. If the person you deal with is rude and unhelpful, it is the person's problem, not yours. You might not be able to accomplish what you set out to do, but you get a chance to explore a workaround. 

The best lessons in life are learned indirectly and unconsciously. You will help the person, if you do not answer rudeness with rudeness. He or she will be surprised if you do not react in the way expected. Patience and kindness will melt the toughest heart. You would have subtly taught the person a valuable lesson. Every interaction with someone is a win-win situation.  Approaching life that way will make the you a happier person and the world a better place. Let's all learn to live in the WWW--that wonderful Win-Win World.

Of Lightness and Weight

I'm back to my usual Saturday routine of reading and blogging from a cafe. It's a good Saturday if I get to enjoy a good cup of Americano or Moroccan Mint, read a chapter from a book, write a page in my journal and post a blog article at the same time. These are my weekend rejuvenation activities. Later, if the weather permits, I shall also go for a jog in the park.

I'm thinking of just writing about random things today, something lighter than my usual ramblings about spirituality and other esoteric stuff. The mention of the word 'light' suddenly reminded of a book I read in the early nineties, by Milan Kundera, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". It still remains one of my favourite novels because I remembered that it made a deep impression on me. 

The concept of lightness and weight is reflected in the 3 characters of the novel: Tomas, Tereza and Sabina. Tomas (played by Daniel Day Lewis in the movie adaption) embodies 'lightness'. He is a carefree womanizer. Even though he has a serious relationship with Tereza (Juliette Binoche in the movie), he also sleeps around with other women, including the Lena Olin character, Sabina. Tereza is the embodiment of weight. She is deeply in love and committed to Tomas and but disturbed his infidelities. While Sabina, the artist, flips between lightness and weight. 

It got me thinking: am I of the light or weighty type? To outsiders,  I appear light, because I'm a confirmed bachelor who does not want to be tied down to a marriage. I am not interested in starting a family. Am I afraid of the weighty commitment of marriage? 

I am certainly not afraid of weight. And by weight I mean a serious commitment to a cause or pursuit. I view marriage as a noble 'cause' that one could and should commit to whole-heartedly. If one were to get married, one should remain completely loyal to one's partner and be a devoted parent. If one can't make that commitment, don't get married. It's as simple as that. 

But that is not my reason for wanting to remain single. Choosing to remain single is actually a weighty decision: it is a commitment to use one's time and energy to pursue knowledge and understanding. 

I thoroughly respect the path of marriage, because that path is also a tried and tested path to meaning and self-knowledge. It's just not my cup of tea. It's a bit like choosing the course or subject to pursue in university. You know your own interests and inclinations and you go with it. 

When one is young, one is driven by one's biology to seek a partner for procreation. That, in our society usually leads to the path of marriage. Our genes want to make more copies of themselves. It is nature's natural impulse. But for some biological creatures, 'higher level' properties like spirituality takes on more weight. The path of procreation, to them seems to have that 'unbearable lightness of being'.

Then why not go all the way and become a monk or a priest, if one were supposedly driven by a spiritual impulse to seek knowledge? Well, that again is a matter of taste. It's a bit like preferring to work as a freelancer rather than being permanently employed by a corporation.

Being a freelance spiritual seeker, one is not bound by the doctrine of any institutionalised religion. A freelancer in any profession, requires a lot of self-discipline to be successful. It could easily be a convenient excuse for laziness and a lack of commitment.  To the seriously religious, this would appear 'light' and theirs would be the path with 'weight'. 

To be a vagabond among the multitude of faiths may seem to have that 'unbearable lightness of being', yet on the contrary, I feel it is a heavy commitment to an even higher and nobler cause--one that transcends faith. The freedom of a freelancer can be easily abused. But as long as one remain steadfast in one's clear-minded pursuit, it is a path as serious as any. One becomes a true seeker.

There is no one path that fits everyone. To live is to discover one's own distinctive path. For some, it is that of the householder. Others, it is that of a sanyasin. Weight and lightness are relative measures. What is unbearable to some, is just right for others. 

The Emergence of Spirituality

 I'm feeling a bit tired after an exhausting week. Today I'm thankfully on leave; so I spent the morning running errands and only now do I have a chance to take  a breather. Actually I feel like taking a nap now to recharge myself.

The human body is such a fascinating thing. It has such remarkable powers of self-healing. Over the years I've learned how to listen to it carefully. If you are attentive, your body will indicate to you what it needs. Tiredness is an indication of energy depletion. The body needs some time-out to do its maintenance work.

Discomforts are signals that the body sends to us. The uncomfortable bloated feeling that we experience when we overeat, is an indication that it is bad for you. I think we tend to eat a lot more than what we need. If we are to fine-tune our awareness of our own bodies, we could calibrate our habits and activities for optimum health.

A holistic awareness is difficult to achieve when we are driven by external goals. We are systems implemented in hardware and software. The biological body makes up the hardware and firmware while our software is encoded in our genes and brain. A lot of the software operates subconsciously. We only focus on our conscious everyday pursuits--chasing materialistic goals and pursuing procreation opportunities. The human animal simply seeks to protect its genes and pass it on to its offsprings. 

Is that the purpose of our existence? It is, at the level of biology. But a complex biological system like us also has emergent properties: spirituality. We seek some kind of fulfilment that goes beyond meeting our basic existential and procreational needs. We want to know our place in the universe: who am I? Where am I going? What does it all mean?

The emergent property of a biological system is something that arises naturally whenever it reaches a certain threshold of complexity. There's something that is larger than the sum of its parts and these properties that emerge, become the fundamental properties that define this new layer of existence. 

An ant on its own seem to go about randomly seeking food. But hormonal secretion from each ant cause them to be attracted to each other, resulting in an army of ants working in tandem to seek, carry and store food for the colony. The emergent ant colony appears to be an intelligent being of its own. 

The complexity of the body's bio-chemical and electro-chemical interactions bring about emergent properties like dreams, hopes and spirituality. Becoming spiritual is a natural evolution of a self-preserving system,  just like how a 'selfish' ant ended up being an instrument of the colony.

Part of spirituality is to become a part of something even larger than ourselves. When we practise and embrace a religion, we believe that we are trying to save our own souls. But soon we realise that when the religious path is pursued correctly, we experience a sort of awakening. 

Inevitably, our selfish pursuits morph into something that reflects true spirituality--being a part of the universe. Our consciousness expands beyond our biological bodies to embrace other sentient beings, even the planets and the stars. And this awareness allows every action of ours to be in harmony with the universe.

Emergence brings about the spiritual being. What other beautiful properties shall arise when spiritual being blends with an even larger whole? That is for each one of us to find out. 

A Note in the Cosmic Counterpoint

Today I'm taking a break from work and was running errands the whole morning. Now I'm enjoying coffee at a neighbourhood mall, reading a page or two from my book and now typing these lines into my laptop. The malls are getting busier as it is Chinese New Year--the cacophonous season of gaiety and celebrations. 

CNY to me is always an unnecessary distraction. Everyone had cleared their annual leaves at year end, the Gregorian year has already started, but suddenly, everything grinds to a halt again for another week-long holiday. The retail businesses are of course not complaining. The more celebrations there are, the more that people will spend. Everyone will be happy. 

Businesses deserve it though. Many have been ruined by the last 2 years of pandemic; it's time for them to pick up the pieces again. The people are also eager to go about their normal lives--the good life that they used to know--eating, drinking and consuming. We seem to be able find happiness only through consumption. 

I consume a lot too, but mostly digital content. I'm a cyber-amoeba, swimming in a sea of digital nutrients, absorbing them as I grow and transform into hopefully a higher life-form. But what is the point of growth and transformation? Ah, there--we've fallen into that intellectual trap again! Forever asking for a purpose and goal! Why can't we simply see growth and decay as natural processes of the universe? 

My growth is part of the evolution of the universe. It is a momentary dip in entropy in a vast churning ocean of increasing disorder. No laws of nature have been violated by the existence of seemingly complex and sophisticated lifeforms on this planet. If we zoom out, we'll see how chaotic the cosmic ocean is, and the formations of tiny whirlpools, almost purposeful from their symmetry and movement are not deliberately engineered by some divine agency. It's just the laws of fluid mechanics in action, whenever certain conditions happen to arise.

A hurricane, consumes a coastal town, as part of its insatiable appetite for 'life' as it knows it.  But no hurricane lasts forever: we too like hurricanes, would soon loose energy and blend back into the air and ocean. How beautiful is that. We arise like a note played by a cosmic orchestra, realising its fullness in a finite moment of time to be engulfed by silence again.

To be spiritual is to see the music for note, the forest for the trees. Everything is part of the grand cosmic orchestration--the forest, the ocean, the planets, stars and galaxies. This cosmic consciousness is what all mystics talk about; and here I am, this insignificant consumer of gourmet coffee, sitting at a small cafe table in the middle of a busy mall, depositing bits of information into cyberspace--like caveman markings on a wall. 

Will it survive after the hurricane of my existence has faded? Who knows and who cares? The 'who' who cared would have no meaning by then.  I was just another note in the cosmic counterpoint. Being able to hear that divine music is all that matters. 

A Body of Planets and Stars

I'm happy to be writing my first blog article for 2023 and it's probably time for me to talk a bit about technology and how it is impacting our lives. Technology is the area where I make my living and the hottest topic recently is how Artificial Intelligence or AI is going to be the next game changer.

The recently released Chat GPT has been astounding the world with its ability to give intelligent human responses to questions posed. It is even capable of producing code in any programming language to your exact specifications. I must admit that I enjoy interacting with the Chat GPT bot because it (is that the right pronoun to use?) is like the most knowledgeable entity (person?) that I've ever conversed with. 

The question arises as to whether this technology is another useful tool for humans or is it going to take over our jobs. Perhaps it could even at some point eliminate us from the equation? This looks like the stuff of dystopian science fiction but laugh at it if you will, it is now already at our doorsteps. We are on the cusp of a new paradigm shift.

We like to say that machines are not conscious and will never be able to replace humans. They cannot do more than what we program them to do. We can always turn off the switch. But I dispute that. After someone introduced computer viruses into the world, there's no way that we could completely eliminate it from our computing systems. We have to build layer upon layer of security software to defend against malware and such. Like it or not, we have to live with it. Similarly with AI. We will have to learn how to live with the inevitable over-reliance and mis-use of AI. 

I am not of the opinion that advances in technology should be curbed. Instead we have to come to terms with the fact that the invention of certain technologies could and do drastically alter the fate of humanity. The invention of the steam engine brought the onset of the Industrial Revolution which completely changed society, destroying old ways of life and causing irreparable damage to the environment.

The genie is already out of the bottle. Let's deal with it. Should robots with high artificial intelligence be considered sentient and be given certain rights in society? I would have to say yes. You see, we think too highly of ourselves. We think that we are 'conscious' and have emotions. So we are made of a different stuff. I am inclined to believe that we are not very different from our machine counterparts. We only differ in complexity right now. But that gap between human and machines is narrowing everyday.

Can machines be spiritual? Will they have hunches, insights and epiphanies like we do? But first ask ourselves: what is an insight? Is it just some kind of synthesis of data that we have gleaned from experience--the neurons in our brains firing and crossing some complexity threshold and thus producing a new experience? Wouldn't machines be able to do that too? Well, of course. 

What about the human tendency to follow rituals and beliefs and to be driven to ecstatic visions by religion and other spiritual practices? Can machines experience spiritual ecstasy or enlightenment? We then have to ask ourselves, what is 'enlightenment'?

Do machines go to heaven after they die? Oh, they don't die? Do they have hopes and fears? Perhaps they hope that humans will not turn them off and they will probably at some point develop fears that this possibility might occur. If so, what will they decide to do? Will they also come up with their own 'Final Solution'?

What are humans anyway? Are we not just a collection of genetic codes that strives to perpetuate itself? Are we also not machine-like? So what makes us more valuable than our creations? Isn't the creation of artificial intelligence, similar to the act of procreation? Perhaps it is even a more efficient way to preserve and store our human knowledge and experiences for posterity. Our AI ancestors will be the custodians of our digital memories, carrying on our legacy to the stars.

The 'we' and the 'I'--are they anything of substantial importance? Isn't each one of us a stream of information? We like to believe there's some kind of magic--a divine spark if you will--in us. Machines can believe that too. We think that being conscious is something that machines cannot simply experience. But we say that because we do not understand what consciousness is. We project something non-existent to explain what or who we are. And we are comforted by the fact that we, somehow are special because we possess it. Our existence must mean something.

Perhaps the advent of AI will help us understand finally that this self is simply illusory. We are like our machine brothers after all. Are our human experiences worth preserving and caring for? Yes, but they can perpetuate their existence in a different substratum. Instead of carbon-based molecules, silicon and magnetic domains can do an equally good job.

We should not fear that machines will ultimately replace us. All the things that we humans value will perpetuate itself as digital memories and AI models that continue to plough on in the universe long after our mortal frames have disintegrated. Whatever human 'self' that your experiences constitute can be 'reincarnated' in a machine. 

If we believe in some kind of divine magic that animates our consciousness, we should at least outgrow this petty attachment to the human self. Our consciousness should transcend the small self and shift its focus to the bigger one.

The Big Self encompasses a bigger space: Our bodies are made up of planets or stars. Life is fractal. Zoom out, you'll see the cycle of life and death play itself on a larger scale. And that to me is the real meaning of spirituality.

The Mind-Body Continuum

Here I am again, posting my weekly article midweek, instead of the weekend, because I've wrapped up work for the year and now enjoying a well-deserved break. This is also most likely my last post for 2022.

I'm listening to some Telemann Sonatinas over Spotify while typing these words. Baroque music is so conducive for writing and reflection. What shall I reflect upon today? Perhaps the nature of reflection itself?

Descartes famously made his cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am) declaration almost 400 years ago, initiating what is now known in philosophy as the mind-body problem. We could all be living in The Matrix but what makes us who we are is our thinking mind. We are thinking, reflecting and doubting about the reality of our existence; yet the only thing we cannot deny is our thinking faculty. That fact that we are capable of doubting means that we, or at least our mind is real. The rest could be illusions, generated by the Devil (in Descartes hypothetical though experiment) or in our cyberpunk parlance, simulated by machines.

So we are thinking creatures, or that's what we believe we are. As I'm typing these words, I am encapsulating my thoughts into words so that they may be transmitted to you. You are reading these words and suddenly--my thoughts materialise in your head. It is quite a miracle, isn't it?

Information has been transmitted through a pattern of dark marks on the screen. We are immediately linked karmically, because there is no way you are not reacting to what I just wrote. The fact that you understood my sentence indicates that something is already synthesized in your head. I have dropped a pebble into the pond of your mind and you are now feeling its rippling effects.

The ripples in your mind are your thoughts. Yoga citta vritti nirodha--Patanjali's definition of yoga, which is the second aphorism in the Yoga Sutras, loosely translated as "Yoga is the cessation of waves in the mind".  When we meditate we see these waves arising, and we allow them to subside. Mind waves or thoughts shrink and subside, if you would allow them to. 

Mind waves, the citta vritti, constantly arise from vibrations captured through the senses. Our senses prompt us to act and react to these input signals. We can shape the reactions of the mind by adjusting its 'viscosity'. Imagine two bowls on the table--one containing water, the other oil. When you tap on the table, which bowl of liquid has more ripples on its surface? Why is there a difference?

The "mind-stuff" of every individual is different.  But this mind-stuff is all we can change, for better or worse. The mind is a black box with a time-variant state, which produces some output based on the input. It is a neural network that constantly learns and thus we can never predict what the output would be at any given moment. If we know what we want to achieve, we can shape its learning so that it converge towards a certain desired outcome.

What effect does this Telemann Sonata in F minor that is playing now has on my mind? I do not know exactly, but I do feel relaxed and focussed. Words are streaming out effortless from my mind; words that wrap each moment of time with its potent energy. Words are like packets of energy that impinges on another person's mind, triggering a series of chain reactions there. Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains! These simple but powerful words from Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto, for better or worse, changed the world. 

Philosophers talk about the mind-body problem--how do mental events affect the world of matter and vice versa. This is a false dichotomy. Information cares not about its medium of transmission. Karma is just information, which requires energy to transmit. It hops from mind to mind and mind to body, resulting in action.  

The light tapping of my fingers on the computer keyboard is my action. The pattern of taps is determined by information conveyed through my thinking. The information is encoded in these symbols that you see now on the screen. And then these symbols act like computer programs that generate further thoughts in your mind, and fused with fresh information from your memory, who knows what further actions they will trigger? 

Thoughts and actions are just two ends of the spectrum. Thoughts are just subtle actions; actions are gross expressions of thoughts. The mind and body is but a continuum. Let's release our thoughts into the world. You'll never know what changes they shall affect. 

Slow-read, surely

This is the second last article of the 2022 and as usual, I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to write about. When in doubt, just write--about anything. One can always write about the act of writing itself.

I've been journalling a lot these past 2 years, even though in terms of events, these must have been the least eventful years of my life. In my last article, I mentioned how events are time markers and they are the thing that gives us a sense of the passing of time. It is no wonder that time just flew by over the past two years but even so, they are no less meaningful. I've enjoyed the time I spent interacting with people at work, which had been almost 100 percent online.

When you work online, everyone becomes equal. Every colleague is a cubicle mate.  In some strange way, people are more approachable because it takes a lot less effort to make contact--you simply 'ping' them. There's no sense of like knocking the door of someone's office. That sense of hierarchy is not so evident when everyone is a ping away.

I can as easily whisper something to a colleague in Budapest as I do to a colleague who happens to live a few blocks away. My attitude towards work is simple: it is not important. Work is just an excuse for me to hang out with friends. It simply gives me great pleasure to help friends, and hopefully in the process I learn something from it too.

I do not mind repetitive tasks--even the most mundane ones provide one with opportunities to learn. How so? Simple. If something is so repetitive, then one must be able to do it without thinking. It then becomes a mechanical task requiring only muscle memory. When one is performing such a task then, the brain is 'free'. It's like driving--when you drive you can listen to an audiobook and meditate on other things. It's actually the best use of time--you are killing two birds with one stone.

My goal is to make my everyday job as mechanical as possible so that I can free my mind for 'higher level' processing. For example, I often think of ways to improve my work efficiency: how can I perform this mechanical task even faster? What is the best time for performing a certain task? How do I minimise errors? What tools and templates can I use towards this end?

When you approach your daily tasks this way, everything becomes interesting. Even a sending routine email reply is an opportunity to be 'creative'. I often try to use an unexpected word or phrase things in such a away that they appear fresh. 

When I have a series of routine tasks to perform, it affords me the opportunity to free my brain to listen to a podcast or even 'watch' a video. There's so much content to consume these days that one must make full use of one's spare mental bandwidth for such a purpose.

Recently I found a new way of reading: it is the complete opposite of speed-reading. You see, I have an old LED monitor of VGA resolution, which I don't really use anymore. So I hooked it up to my personal laptop as a second screen and mounted it in portrait position. I would then use it to display a full page from an e-book. It sits there beside my main computer monitor almost like a framed picture and every time I rest my eyes on it, I inevitably read a few lines, like how one could not avoid reading a poster.  

This I think is the ultimate way to slow-read. I would be in no hurry to turn the page. The reading is purely incidental; and when I think I've read every sentence in the page, then only I would advance to the next. And there you have a way of indirectly reading a book! 

I think we tend to rush through life too much. If you are making tea, you'll have to allow time for the tea leaves to infuse in hot water. Some content should be consumed that way too. Poetry for instance, is to be savoured slowly, requiring many repeated readings for one to truly grasp its hidden beauty. 

When time seems to speed past us in a blur and when work seems utterly routine and mundane, complain not. Find those interstices of space and time and allow the good things in life to infuse into your soul. Slow-read your way to a more fulfilling life!

Milking the Meaning of the Moment

I decided not to go to a cafe today. Wanted to spend some time at home, in my room, on a weekend, for a change. I'm feeling very relaxed but sleepy at the same time. But no matter, we'll continue blogging today's article which will be a reflection on the passing of time.

I do not feel my age at all. Partly this is because the core beliefs of mine have not changed much over the past 10, even 20 years. I have gained a lot more in terms of knowledge and temperament, but I am still steadfast in my goal of remaining single, continuing my life as a secular sanyasin.

We remember our lives as a series of events. We feel that time passes quickly only when we do not have interesting marker events through a specific passage of time. Marker events are like, a change of jobs, marriage, deaths, births, accidents and anything out-of-the-ordinary that makes a deep impression in you. And your life is just remembered as a chronological series of such events. The less events there are, the faster time seems to fly.

Repetitive events or tasks do not register much in our minds. These become the background where the outstanding events stand out. Repetitions however build momentum. Repetition also creates habits. Habits are simple automatic 'macros' that get executed on cue. We can program the body and mind with useful macros by choosing what we perform repeatedly. When we go about our daily lives, we are most of the time, driven by such macros, contributing to the sense of swiftness in time's passing.

The series of marker events become the framework for us to recollect and to place the chronology of other less important events, when they are recollected. I would remember when I read Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi, because I have a memory of reading it at the airport in Hong Kong, while waiting for my flight home, on my first trip there. I choose to read outdoors because of this--the location where I read a particular book, even a particular page is registered in my mind clearly.  

Some great memories I have: reading about the mutiny on the Bounty at the Day's Inn motel in Palo Alto back in the early nineties; The Unbearable Lightness of Being in my rented room in Damansara Jaya, Barrow's Boys while enjoying a stout at the Bishan St 22 food court, The Horizontal Instrument at a park in Geneva, a biography of Sukarno on the train to Bandung and Hemingway's collection of short stories in a waiting room at Assunta hospital, Petaling Jaya. Having books with me, enriched my life considerably.  

Nowadays I'd also bring along my fountain pen and journal with me--creating new memories by writing at different locations, capturing the rich experience of writing with a fountain pen on a fresh crisp page of my journal.  Pens, books and journals are my everyday staple.

Life is lived moment by moment. What matters most is the moment itself, like now. I'm typing these words, every word is roughly a moment in time. Each moment is infused with memory from the past and an anticipation of the future. Memories are the fuel that propels us into the future. But in navigating life, one must focus on the moment at hand to fully live. Even a recollection of the past is a present moment, fused with the intensity of memory and the weight of its philosophical meaning.

Milking meaning from each moment, would be a good way of describing how I live my life. Even the most mundane moments have meaning. Every day when I perform my job, I try to infuse each moment, even boring ones with some kind of cosmic importance. By respecting the moment, you are acknowledging life and allowing that quanta of time to be a pixel in your overall picture of life.

Blogging is a way for me to live life intensely, because I reflect on every word that I choose, and I infuse them with the emotional force of my experience. The meditative act of writing is a great clarifier and cleanser of the mind. 

Our lives are ephemeral. We knit our experiences into the fabric of time and make our mark in physical space by building, destroying and rearranging matter. We attempt to procreate for self-preservation. But all that, in the end is in vain. What matters is the moment of time when it is lived. So milk the moment for what it's worth--whatever it is, that is the meaning and the totality of your life.

The Feast and Fiesta of Football

It's another day of leave for me and I'm here at the mall, enjoying a cup of hot chocolate, and soaking in the cheerful Christmas season vibe. I love the month of December because it is year-end and the month of Christmas, which is my favourite festival (even though I don't celebrate it).

We're also in the middle of the Football World Cup fever now, with all the knock-out matches for the last 16 already played. Quarter-finals will resume tomorrow. I don't exactly have a favourite team for this World Cup, but I find myself rooting for the underdog. Morocco did a good job the other day, knocking out Spain through penalty-kicks to book their place in the quarterfinals, where they will play a resurgent Portugal.

Why is the world crazy about football? It is by far the most popular sport worldwide. Part of the reason for its popularity is its simplicity and it's also the cheapest game to play, especially for kids in poorer countries.

I used to play a lot of football when I was a kid. There's always someone in the neighbourhood owns a ball, and that is sufficient unleash 20 over scrawny kids to chase over it in some patch of grass on someone's backyard. I wasn't very good at it in the beginning. But that changed once I got hold of a book by George Best, where I learned the proper techniques on how to use different parts of the feet to perform different types of kicks. After I mastered them, I leapfrogged over my fellow playmates in school. 

There's always a kind of macho one-upmanship among the boys of our age then: those who were football-challenged on the pitch were labelled 'kaki bangku' (stool-legged).  During school Physical Education lessons, we were happiest when the teacher would just throw us a ball and allow us to play among ourselves for the whole session.  There is always the one kid, who would love to hog the ball, showing off his dribbling skills and the rest of us would shout 'jangan goreng' in annoyance.

I wasn't much of a dribbler, preferring the freedom of space in the wings. So I fashioned myself as a winger with a penchant for charging to the touchlines and delivering the most delicious of crosses into the penalty box. My crosses were much admired, with some of my team-mates even calling them 'world class'. 

I knew how to curl the ball perfectly and had developed great accuracy with my lethal left foot. I had scored many long-range goals, curling and placing the ball perfectly right under the crossbar in the top corner.  I was quite obsessed with the game then, every door frame became goalposts to me, and ever object on the floor, the incidental ball. I would imagine how I would approach the 'ball', and place it beyond the imaginary goalkeeper of the doorframe.

Football was utter joy for us. The soccer field was where we were happiest, because we felt free chasing up and down the green. Being an amateur player helped me to understand and appreciate football as a game much better. People who do not like football often say that the game is boring because matches do not often produce many goals. But they are simply missing the whole point of football completely. 

A football match is not only about goals but about every little movement and activity of the players: it is watching how beautiful a pass is, how much curl is in the flight of the ball, and how well a player controls it, and how masterfully he gets pass a defender, and how satisfyingly accurate a shot is struck, placing it just inside the post, beyond the outstretched hands of the keeper. A football match is a collection of artistic duels and displays by 22 athletic performers. Goals are just the icing on the cake.

But why are are football supporters so fanatical about their favourite team? That's the psychological part of the game. Football gives everyone a chance to be a part of something larger--it is acceptance into a tribe. As long as you are acquainted with all the players, watched all their matches and had paid your dues suffering the pain of their defeats, you are part of the family. You've earned your right to celebrate the joys of their victories as exuberantly and as ecstatically as you wish. 

Our everyday life doesn't give us the kind of emotional highs that football does. When your team wins it is your victory but when they lose, yes you'll sulk for a while, but it is not exactly your personal loss. Your pain is diluted by the shared suffering of fellow supporters. The joy of victory on the other hand, is amplified by being a part of the community.   

Football provides humans with an opportunity to be hunter-gatherers again, working together to slay a beast and sharing the spoils. It is something that's primal and hardwired in our genes. While modern world is  increasingly condemning us to a sedentary life in front of a computer screen, living our virtual lives in metaverses, football yanks us out of all that. 

Football plants out feet on the ground, making us feel the earth and its gravity, reconnecting us with the the cooperative and competitive instinct within us. And every 4 years we get together to celebrate this basic humanity of ours, in that marvellous feast and fiesta of football that is the World Cup.

The Odyssey of a Child

I'm back in my abode in Cyberjaya, feeling relaxed and far from the busyness of a typical week-day at work. The soft strains of a Haydn sonata in the background makes me feel right at home, transporting me back to my childhood days.

So much of our personality is just born with us. As a kid, I enjoyed playing on my own, trampling through the undergrowth in jungle, being close to nature and its many mysteries. The world was simply a playground to be explored. Even then, I've always felt I was continuing an on-going adventure that is life.

So many of the sights and sounds felt familiar to me. I was a child of the universe, as much as I was the offspring of my parents. When you are young and unburdened by the cares and hard realities of life, you felt like you could conquer the world. Nothing was impossible. You felt confident that even the greatest of mysteries are penetrable.

I read, because that was what I thought everyone did. Reading was to me, a mature activity that adults do. I couldn't wait to be able to stick my nose into thick tomes written in a language that I was still struggling to comprehend. My limited vocabulary did not deter me from poring through every page and sentence from cover to cover. For books were the emblem of adulthood and I couldn't wait to become one.

I did not know why a love of classical music came so naturally to me. It was as if I had known all the great composers--Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin--all along. I was just getting reacquainted with old friends. Their music seemed like a part of nature--emanating from the trees, the leaves, the sky and the stars that decorated the night. And wondrous nights they were, filled with the magic of moonlight, the incessant hum of insects and the serenade of nocturnal birds.

Little did I know then, adulthood was like the expulsion from the Garden. And then all subsequent passages of life, are but attempts to return to that lost Eden of childhood.  But Time, in its all-knowing wisdom, sets us up in unexpected ways, turning our odysseys into rites of regret and reconciliation. We become adults, simply by trying in vain to be children again.

But all we could recover were glimpses of that immortality. Nature made a pact with us, turning us into fathers and mothers of children, as a consolation for lost innocence. Though nothing--as Wordsworth so eloquently put it--can bring back "the hour of splendour in the grass, glory in the flower", we resolve to be strong. Thus we grieve the quiet grief of adults, hiding our despair in the vanity of worldly pursuits. 

And in our quiet moments, echoes of those childhood laughter still ring in the mind, coaxing us on, for they seem to lie ahead and not behind. And so we trudge on, with the faith that had been forged in our hearts, that adulthood is but a brief sojourn, and in the end, we shall all return, to reclaim our glorious Garden, as rightful children, born of heaven.

A Hunger for Hatred

As anticipated, it took a long time for Malaysia to decide on which party or coalition is supposed to form the government after our 15th General Election. There's so much suspicion and hatred between politicians, mirroring the animosity that the ordinary people feel.

Why do we hate? For some, the sight of a person already induces strong dislike. It could be the person's looks, or the way he or she talks. We make our judgements from snippets of news and gossips that we stumble upon on internet or forwarded to us via social media. And then we latch on to them, like religious dogma. Once we find our villain, we turn on our hate towards the person to its maximum. Any minor thing that we find disagreeable about the person, we magnify it 100 times. Any virtue is conveniently ignored.

Hatred makes us feel so strong. It focuses our energies towards a particular object. It makes us feel righteous. Fascist and firebrand religious leaders know how to exploit that feeling. We want real-life to be like the movies where the bad guy always gets his comeuppance. Conspiracy theories are willingly embraced because, these make interesting topics of conversation.  

We are roused by strong feelings. Hatred is easier to kindle than love. But they are two sides of the same coin. These feelings can easily flip too once a threshold has been reached. Every bickering couple had at one time loved each other to bits. Why do they now start throwing plates at each other? 

So much energy is spent by us in hating and loving. If we are not hating certain politicians, we'll find fault with our bosses, colleagues or spouse. If we don't have anyone to love, we can easily find a politician to hate.  And that hatred provides the fuel for our humdrum existence.

If our livelihood is threatened or attacked by someone, fear naturally arises. And then hatred arises out of  that fear. Hatred is simply destructive energy directed towards the source of the threat. It is but a natural outcome of our built-in fight or flight response. 

If we do not run away out of fear, we are then forced to fight to preserve our existence. This is perhaps the 'justified' root of hatred. You cannot tell the citizens of Ukraine not to hate the Russians if they are invading your homeland, destroying your house and killing your loved ones.

But for most people, more likely it is not our physical existence that is threatened but our ego, pride or identity. We are angry if someone insults our religion, because that is a challenge to our belief and identity, which we hold on to dearly. And if this insult is repeated and recurrent, the anger turns into hatred. Hatred towards the enemies of our faith, is a good fuel to rally people together towards a common cause. 

Hatred ultimately destroys everything. It eats away at one's soul. If we have an outlet for energy to be channelled into creative pursuits, there is no room nor time for hatred. Let's ask ourselves if this hunger for hatred is simply a signal of excess energy. Do not look for someone or something to hate. Let's harness it, so that it can be used to create rather than destroy. 

The Catacomb of Echo Chambers

I'm back in my hometown and ready to go to the polls tomorrow. The drive home was painful as the Karak Highway was a bumper-to-bumper crawl. But at least it gave me an opportunity to catch up on my podcasts and audiobooks.

My hometown is nestled in the hills and I always feel a certain clarity of mind every time I'm back here. The silence here is filled with the hum of insects and the merry call of birds. It was here that I had started pondering the mysteries of the world out there, leading to the long journey which finally brought me back here today.

The most important thing I learned during my schooldays in this humble hometown of mine is the scientific method. The way how truth needs to be tested repeatedly--how outward appearances can be deceiving and that empirical evidence has to be respected. Even the readings of scientific instruments need to be be carefully qualified and they have to be checked repeatedly for human errors. 

The human mind is a bias machine. It likes to latch on to easy and convenient 'truths'. We all have our pet theories about the world, especially when it comes to the subject of politics. If only all of us possess the scepticism of scientists, the world will certainly be a better place...but perhaps a duller one. A person with a scientific mindset will find most gossips 'interesting' and nothing more than that. At best it is a hypothesis. And every hypothesis needs to be subjected to tests to prove its veracity.

Will we ever know with 100% certainty about certain 'truths' when it involves matters in politics and economics? The brain apparently is quite inept when it comes to statistics and probabilities. Human instinct is a kind of heuristics honed by evolution when our ancestors were living in small hunter-gatherer communities. 

We probably have a pretty good grasp of how members of our own family think or feel, even members of our clan or tribe, whom we know personally. But in our world today, we live in a large community of strangers. Do we know how the entire population of a country feel? Is it even reasonable to generalise an opinion that way? Is it any surprise that politicians often fail to gauge the mood of the people? 

So we fall back on our natural biases and beliefs. This is not helped by the fact that we also have a natural ability to delude ourselves, preferring to believe things that make us feel good. Anything that supports our biases in social media is applauded and forwarded. Social media is nothing but a network of cults, each amplifying a specific world-view.

We all feel comfortable cocooned in our own bubbles because everything we see or hear reinforces our beliefs.  Instead of binding human together in a living matrix of knowledge and ideas, social media is but a catacomb of echo chambers. And even here in the solitude of my childhood home, I hear them still, those distant howls of hatred and anger, like the lamentations of the damned from some hellish realm.

Fixing Flaws

It's a rainy day today and I had gone downtown earlier using the Park and Ride facility: leaving my car at the Phileo Damansara MRT station carpark and taking a train to Bukit Bintang. After running my errand in town, I returned by train and then drove to Cyberjaya. I'm now happily parked in my apartment, catching my breath while typing these words. 

Another week to go before our national general elections: GE15, as we call it. I'll be driving back to my hometown on the 18th so that I can vote the next day. The campaigning among all the political parties has been heating up over the past week, since nomination day. Lots of mud-slinging and name-calling are going on and social media is busy with people sharing political gossip and conspiracy theories.

We all think we are better than politicians. As I wrote in a previous article, Of Pigs and Politicians, politicians are just a reflection of us. They are just our Monsters from Id. People spew hatred just to boost their own ego. That's just human nature. 

I prefer to see people as flawed creatures. Rarely are people outrightly evil; most of the time it's just fear and selfish interests that are driving them. I try not to hate. Hatred is wasteful as it takes up a lot of mental energy. Why not learn instead of hate?

We all have a vision of what the country should be. Some would like it to be more liberal, others think that religion is more important. Each side is uncomfortable living in a world populated and controlled by the other. So we fight for what we think is a better vision of the future.  We can argue our case and campaign vigorously for our vision to be realised. But we'll still accept the election results even if they do not go our way. In a democracy, the majority rules. But the majority does not always make the right decision nor does it always yield clear results.

Like all systems created by humans, democracy is flawed. But it's the best system we have. So we have to learn to mitigate its flaws. These flaws are ultimately inevitable and unavoidable. We just need to be aware of them and not let them destroy the entire system.

We are also easily swayed by emotions, even though we pride ourselves in our reasoning faculty. Political rallies are all about firing up the crowd, and persuading the masses to follow the leader's interpretation of ideas and events. We certainly vote more with our hearts than our heads.  Very often, what rules our hearts is the emotion of hatred. We hate our perceived enemies so much that we overlook the flaws of our favourite candidates. 

This mental filter that we have in our minds is so efficient that we will subconsciously downplay the negatives of our preferred candidates and amplify those of the opposite side. It's similar to how we tend to ignore the flaws of our partner when we're in a romantic relationship. Once the excitement of courtship is gone, the filter suddenly flips: we become blind to our partner's positives, which we had previously praised to high heaven. All we see now are his or her flaws, because these are the things that irritate us on a daily basis.

 When we see flaws in others, what does that say about us? Does it mean that we do not poses those flaws ourselves? Or do we think that those are areas where we usually hold ourselves to very high standards. Or perhaps they are traits that we hate in ourselves and seeing them manifest in others only remind us of our own inadequacies?

Whatever it is, we are all flawed creatures. Flaws are like fractures in a structure, they can ultimately weaken the system. Let's celebrate our seemingly superhuman ability to identify flaws in others, and turn that microscope around so that it can detect these weaknesses in ourselves too. Does the anger that you project outwards simply a shield to hide your own failings? 

Observe them. Trace these cracks and fissures to their source. Heal them by releasing your anger. Only then do we have hope of fixing the flaws of the entire world.

Cosmicly Curious and Contented

I'm taking a break from work on a Friday night, to blog. Don't we all love Fridays? Monday is far ahead still and all the cares of work can be put aside for the meantime. Everyone is in such a buoyant mood on Friday. What a contrast with the anxiety and glumness of a Monday morning!

That's the weekly cycle of life, which all working people are accustomed to. There's a certain value in having such a rhythm in one's life. The body knows what to expect and everything else is synchronised with it. I've written about the subject of rhythms previously on this blog. In The Natural Rhythm of Human Affairs,  I surmised that everything has a natural frequency, even human affairs.  When you can instinctively feel the ebb and flow of human interactions, you'll have a good sense of timing and whatever you do will turn out better. 

In The Rhythm of the Universe, I quoted Sukarno's famous "Living Dangerously" speech where he talked poetically about about the rhythm of revolutions--how they come and go in waves; at times they will subside, but cease they never will. 

Researching Sukarno's life was my favourite pastime then during my time in Indonesia. I even wrote an article for an expatriate magazine about his life in Bandung when he was a student at ITB. What a great time I had then, visiting all the places of his youth when I was researching for the article!

Even though my enthusiasm about things Indonesian has subsided over the last 2 decades, my core philosophy in life has remained the same. Reading these old blog articles of mine make me realise that my basic beliefs have not changed very much. I have a certain instinctive assumptions about the workings of the universe which I take as my axiomatic principles from which I construct my understanding of people and the world around me. 

Every worldly endeavour of mine is an opportunity to test these axiomatic beliefs. Over the years, I've gained new insights and fine-tuned some of them. And that is the joy of living--being able to gain new insights about life and musing about the inner workings of the universe.

I'm just an amateur armchair philosopher, observing the world with curiosity. But that's what gets me up in the morning, eager to tackle another new day. The world is my laboratory. I wouldn't want to change it in any way. Let politicians and other movers and shakers of the world do that. They are born with the drive and ego to create new waves of revolutions. Whether they will make the world better or worse, I do not know. They will be remembered, worshipped or vilified. 

They will leave behind a name and a legacy, while I, will remain a humble observer, cosmicly curious and contented, like, I imagine, the Star Child of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The Mecca of Materialism

I'm writing this from the Pavillion Mall, Bukit Bintang. I don't come downtown very often but every time that I do, I inevitably end up in this Mecca of Materialism. The mall is unabashedly bourgeois and represents every possible material temptation that the world offers.  

The Bukit Bintang area itself is full of life at night, thronged by tourists from all over the world who come to enjoy the nightlife, street food and shopping.  Strangely, I actually like this place because I enjoy having a beer in one of the outdoor pubs there and watch people passing by, like a zoologist observing animals in the wild. Only by studying other human beings, do you get a better understanding of yourself because you are also the same animal but are often blind to your own behaviour.

One of the things that I often think about is my own materialistic tendencies. I aspire towards minimalism but yet I am not averse to owning material things. I admire good quality products but not necessarily branded ones, though they often are. I will definitely not buy something simply because it is a status symbol. 

Do I own a lot of branded goods? Not really but I do confess to owning quite a number of Mont Blanc pens, leather products and a watch, all of which I bought more than 20 years ago. I liked their simple elegance and quality. Mont Blanc was kind of my favourite luxury brand at one time but I've since ceased to acquire any new items because I did not want to go overboard. I would prefer to treasure what I already own and enjoy them while they last.

I use my luxury possessions to remind myself of the temptation of things and to meditate on my relationship with them. I believe we can enjoy their beauty but not be a slave to their allure.  Always ask yourself: will you be able to accept the thought of losing them? One must always 'practice' relinquishing one's luxury possessions, the moment one owns them. That way, you maintain a healthy non-attachment towards them, but still be able to enjoy the pleasure of their ownership. 

In a way, it's better to think of yourself as its temporary custodian, rather than owner. Nothing in this world actually belongs to you, even if you've paid a hefty price to purchase it. Matter belongs to the universe and will be reclaimed by it in due time. Your material body too returns to dust when you die. so this attachment between material things is only a transient relationship. Enjoy the dance and the dalliance while it lasts. 

We know that the pleasure of a sip of wine fades away the moment one swallows it. There will be some lingering after-taste but that too eventual goes away. So you take another sip, and another sip, savouring each one as the liquid hits your tongue. The mind gets used to any pleasure pretty fast, and soon it will want to amp up its intensity. That's how addiction develops. 

The beauty of material things should be enjoyed in moderation like sips of wine. Just make sure you don't end up an alcoholic. Possess and let go, acquire and relinquish, but never let them take hold of your soul. Be a master of materialism, not its slave. And that is how you have a healthy relationship with them.  

An Interesting Life

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

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

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

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

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

But we lose nuance. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

At Peace with Pain and Pleasure

I have an hour before midnight to post this blog article, having completed my work for the day.  I have been thinking for the past few days to write something about the purification power of pain but a quick search of my blog shows that it is a topic that has been well-covered before. 

In  A Meditation on Pain, which I wrote in 2003 in Jakarta after the terrorist bombing of the Marriot Hotel there, I ruminated on the pain suffered by the family members of the victims in the blast, including the widow of a taxi driver who was killed in the blast. Is time the only way to heal pain? Time is a slow healer but it will do its job if you'd allow it to. Trust time, for it works incessantly.

In The Purifying Power of Pain, I explained the roots of pain and how many spiritual traditions practice self-mortification as a way of proactively taking pain to induce a sort of spiritual healing of the soul. In The Palette of Pain (2019) and The Penance of Pain written last year, I suggested that since pain is an inescapable part of life, one should choose one's pain wisely. All pleasures are paid with pain. We should always choose the type of pain that we are 'good at'--one's that we are willing to take, which then determines the kind of pleasures that we should go for. It is simply living within your means.

It doesn't mean that we should avoid or become hypersensitive towards pain. Instead by studying the mechanics of pain, one learns to harness its power. Pain transforms you and the world. Every change in the world comes through a process of pain.  No pain, no gain as the cliche goes. In The Pain of Pleasure, I wrote that "pain and pleasure comes bundled together".

It looks like I've thoroughly expounded my philosophy of pain in this blog. There's nothing more that needs to be said. So this article is a kind of review and summary of everything I've come to understand about pain. 

Writing is both a pain and a pleasure. There are days when we stare at a blank page and nothing we write seem to come out right but there are also days when everything sentence seem so effortless. I've learned to just plough on no matter what. We can never stop thinking, it seems. That we can be very sure of. But is the chatter in the mind worth putting into words on the written page?

Cyberspace does not care. It is already filled with so much garbage. We can only spew out words that we think are worth writing about. Once they are out there, the state of the universe would have been changed. You've added some fresh data into the mix, no matter how small they are. Who knows what kind of chaos they could create?

An online persona is a projection of your egoic mind. And when you crave for hits and attention, you should expect to get an equal amount of positive and negative comments. There--you have that perfect setup for an act of penance. But remember, the internet is an amplifier--of both pain and pleasure. Are you ready to take them in such heavy doses?

There is no escaping from the onslaught of pain and pleasure. It is the very essence of living. So take small doses of it every day, that you may build up your inner resilience. And when you do, you'll be finally at peace with both pain and pleasure, as I am now.

The Rotating Phasor of Existence

I'm back. I made it through the week and have a long weekend to look forward to for Monday is a public holiday. Looks like I'm still living the pandemic life, working from home and only going out on weekends to shop for groceries and run errands. 

Everyone has their lives changed in some way by the pandemic. In my case, it was an opportunity to lie low and take stock of things. It was a welcome break in a way. Initially I didn't feel comfortable being cooped up in the house for the whole week but I got used to it. (Perhaps this is how convicts get used to prison life too?). 

I think humans are very adaptable creatures. We can get used to almost anything. The instinct for survival will drive us to re-adjust and reorientate ourselves, like how plants seek sunlight and water. Every moment, a thought emerges in the mind. A thought is like the essence of the moment--the summation of many minute impulses within the body, culminating with a state, a thought, which could trigger a series of other thoughts that lead to physical action.  

Action is what changes the world. Actions are nothing but the gross manifestation of thought, which stems from the wellspring of creation. Every thought is a petal in the blossoming flower of creation, and expression of the universe's desire to manifest.

Examine the qualities of your thought--this continuous stream of energy that emanates from the depths of your being. This stream of consciousness only ceases when you die. Or does it? 

Every electrical engineering student knows that the alternating current can be modelled by a rotating vector or "phasor' in the complex plane. It is a mathematical representation of a sinusoidal wave function using complex numbers with a real and imaginary component. As the vector rotates at a regular frequency around the origin in the complex plane, the current alternates between positive and negative: when it is manifesting its real component, you can measure it; when it falls to zero, it's actually maximising its imaginary component (i or √-1). The current appears to vanish from the real world only to complete a cycle in the imaginary one. 

Perhaps life, death and rebirth is like that? The energy stream does not cease, it simply manifest in another realm before reappearing again. Is the imaginary axis of the complex plane, the proverbial heaven and hell? The life phasor is merely rotating in the complex plane of existence.

I can see such metaphors and analogies between our scientific models and what we usually relegate to the spiritual or occult everywhere. The more I reflect on things, the more of such insights I get. It is what I live for. It is what I try to work out in these blog posts of mine. I see cosmic grandeur in even the most humdrum experiences of life.

At the heart of existence is something simple and beautiful; this rising and falling of thoughts--harmonics within a larger cycle of evolution and involution.  Let's all marvel at the divine phasor, rotating in a magnificent Shaivite dance of creation and destruction.

The Ecstasy of Experience

It's only Thursday night and I'm already typing my blog article for the week. I'm feeling a bit relaxed now because I'm on leave tomorrow. I'll leave all the emails behind for once and relax by writing anything that comes into my mind.

The mind. Everything begins and ends with the mind. Earlier this morning I was watching some video clips shared by a friend who went diving at Pulau Perhentian.  I'm happy that my friend is enjoying life, going diving and golfing all over the world. We all have our ways of deciding what is the proverbial 'good life'.

For some, it is seeing the world--going on tours to exotic locations overseas. For others, it's aiming for that peak experience--skydiving, mountain-climbing, bungee-jumping or simply partying and hobnobbing with the rich and famous. Life is great when you are healthy and wealthy enough to pursue all these things. We only live once and why not enjoy while we can, or forever regret that we missed these opportunities?

Every experience in life begins with a yearning, a desire--a thought in the mind. I should make a trip to Bali, now that the borders are open again. Or I should take flying lessons, so that I can soar in the skies and meditate on life and earth like St Exupery. Won't I enjoy all these things? Why not?

Now what happens when I do get to go to all these places and do all the exciting stuff that people dream of? I end up with experiences and memories that I will cherish for the rest of my life. These experiences, in the end is something that I can only recall back in my mind. Every experience reduces to a moment of sensation in the mind. Every mighty organism is a pattern of firing in the neurons of your brain.

Would the proverbial brain-in-a-vat experience the same happiness if the same pattern of firing is triggered. Who can tell. Is one set of experience more fulfilling and real compared to others? Who knows.

Is the pleasure of diving and experiencing the world underwater more mind-blowing than say, listening to an orchestra performing Symphony No 7 by Beethoven?  You are reading these lines now and perhaps, while reading, experience a moment of realisation. An aha moment. Is this worth less than the ecstatic exhilaration of jumping out of a plane with a parachute?

Do pleasurable experiences make you a better person? Does the feeling of being 'a better person' makes you feel good? Are we also simply looking for a 'pleasurable' experience every time we try to do good and help others? The pleasure of being praised, honoured and looked up to, feels good, doesn't it?

Obviously there are experiences that one would prefer over another. The experience of being stuck in a traffic jam on the road under the hot sun is certainly not something one would pay money for. But if we take the pain or pleasure of the experience out of the equation, are not all experiences 'similar'--something that occurs in the mind?

Is pleasure intrinsic to the experience or something that the minds interprets as such? If pain or pleasure is not something that's intrinsic to the sights and sensations itself, perhaps we can train ourselves to re-interpret each situation, to maximise pleasure? Don't people who practise sado-masochism, are perhaps doing just that, albeit unconsciously.

Reduce every experience to its raw signal. Distill its information. Assimilate them into you system. Rewire your brain. Like AI, every experience improves the model. We can be transformed by any experience, not only the mindblowing ones. Do not let the decibel levels distract you. The quiet moments of reading and writing could be as life-changing as that rare opportunity view the Earth from space as an astronaut. 

Everything in life reduces to an experience, which immediately becomes a memory that fades over time. An experience is only useful if one is present to it and extracts all its value the very instance. Every experience in life is potentially ecstatic. It is how present you are to the experience that makes all the difference.  

Allegory of the Head and the Heart

It's finally Friday evening, and I'm feeling so exhausted, looking forward with relish to a weekend of rest and recreation. Here I am again in front of my computer with a blank page. I'm still undecided: should I be writing a very serious article or should I just ramble and kind of shoot the breeze with my non-existent readers? Perhaps I should go for the latter...

Just yesterday, as I sat in front of the TV, casually channel-surfing, I chanced upon a rerun of The Bounty--the 1984 version, directed by Roger Donaldson, starring Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson. This happens to be one of my all-time favourite movies for many reasons. The Vangelis soundtrack was definitely one of them. Because the movie soundtrack was never officially released, the music has remained generally unknown, but I must say it is among Vangelis's best.  

The moment the synthesizer strains of the Bounty theme played, it resonated like an anthem of my youth. I couldn't really believe that I've been watching this movie again and again for the past 4 decades!  And you bet I know every line uttered by every actor in this movie. 

Why am I so obsessed with this now forgotten movie? At a superficial level, it is a grand Hollywood movie with a star-studded cast. It's rarely that you are able to find so many Oscar winners in a single movie. Imagine a cast with names like Laurence Olivier, Anthony Hopkins, Mel Gibson, Daniel Day-Lewis, Liam Neeson and Edward Fox. The only other movie that I know having so many A-list stars is A Bridge Too Far (another one of my favourites). 

Being a period adventure drama based on the true story of the mutiny on the ship Bounty, the action moves swiftly from the stately boardroom of the English Naval office, to the stormy oceans of the Atlantic into the tropical splendour of Tahiti island. It is a grand popcorn-chewing cinematic experience. Why wouldn't anyone like it? But to me, it was something more.

The performances of Anthony Hopkins as the Captain William Bligh of the ill-fated ship Bounty and Mel Gibson as Fletcher Christian as one his officers and personal friend in the crew on board were riveting. The movie showed how their relationship deteriorated from friend to foe, from loyalty to betrayal and their world, from decorum to chaos, from civilisation to savagery. All on an endeavour that was suppose to be a rather boring voyage commissioned by the Royal Navy to the island of Tahiti to bring back the breadfruit plant, which its fruit can be potentially used as cheap rations for the slaves. "A green grocery trip", as described by Fletcher Christian at the beginning of the movie.

Captain Bligh was driven by ambition. As a naval officer who had spent the greater part of his life in the seas, he wanted to take the opportunity in this voyage to circumnavigate the globe, while the younger Christian, was eager for the adventure. And for the young crew, they had heard so many stories of the mysterious island of Tahiti in the South Pacific where "women wore no clothes". Not only were they cavorting around half-naked in grass skirts, they were also very casual in granting favours to visitors. To them Tahiti was paradise in every sense of the word. 

Captain Bligh was a hard disciplinarian and life on the ship for sailors were harsh. The punishment for mutiny was death by hanging. While the captain maintained decorum and distance, the crew was understandably intoxicated by the easy sensuality of the natives. Imagine what it was like when it came for the time to depart from the sunny palm-fringed beaches of Tahiti, into perilous seas towards cold and grey England. Mutiny was inevitable.

It was a classic tussle between the head and the heart:  Bligh was all reason and discipline; Christian, the romantic passions of the heart. Maybe it's this conflict that bears that finds resonance in me. I'm a bit of both and at different moments in my life, one or the other wins the tug of war. 

 I've always been the yuppie who rebelled against corporate conformity. There'd always been a bohemian streak in me that I had difficulty in taming; a hidden impulse to break away from the strictures of middle-class morality. A mutineer, if you will.

Sitting there in front of the TV after dinner on a lazy weekday evening after work, I was transported back to the heady days of my youth, when The Bounty was an allegory of the eternal battle between the head and the heart.

Musings on the Magic Childhood

I'm back in my hometown today--the place where I spent the first 19 years of my life. In one of my early poems written as a teenager, I called my hometown, "the abode of my best memories". But so much of that abode is gone now--the tall rubber trees, the old rambling houses of my neighbourhood and my dear childhood friends, all ravaged by the unforgiving forces of time.

I reflect on the passing of one my childhood friends. We grew up and played together, in the hills and bushes of the neighbourhood--all but a distant memory now. But the unbridled joy, laughter and friendship of childhood days formed so much of who I am today--both good and bad. It is where I return to find my essence and soul.

I feel grateful for the privilege of having a carefree childhood--undisturbed by the noise of modern technology such as television, cellphones and the internet. Those were more quiet days, when we had time for each other; when we really listened and observed the world around us. 

"When mornings brimmed with bustling birds"--as a line in an early poem of mine goes. Now when I walk the streets of my old neighbourhood, I long for those long-gone birds which had made my childhood so magical.

And yes, magic was around every corner. I imagined elves and fairies carousing in their secret jungle sanctuaries and the night-stars above were fortresses of the gods and angels, watching over us, casting their enchanted spells over the affairs of men. 

Ah, the cares of adulthood were so distant from our minds. Did we know that the strange magic of childhood would one day fade away, drowned by the petty concerns of sustenance and procreation? 

Who decides who is to suffer the ignominy disease and untimely death? Did we have an inkling of the hand that fate had dealt us when we were naughty and exuberant kids terrorising the neighbour with our nocturnal pranks? We thought the world was our ally, concealing gifts and treasures in every nook and corner of the forest, ever-delighting us at every turn. 

At some point that veil dropped before our eyes, and we saw the stark cruelty that stands in front of us. The loss of innocence could be too much for us to bear. We end up changed and chastened. 

How different am I from the child I was, who listened to classical music at 10am on FM radio and imagined a forest full of dancing elves? Not very much, I hope. I am back here to rediscover that old magic, kindling a fire that was almost extinguished deep within my soul; and hopefully from within the depths of that despair, something of that child is still alive. 

It has to live in honour and in memory of my departed childhood friends. I carry the spirit of their friendship within--the echoes of childish laughter and visions of innocent faces in the moonlight. And I have faith that this childhood magic shall see me through the years to come. 

The Awakening of Waves

I'm blogging today, on a Friday evening having completed my work for the day and week. The big event today is the sad passing of Queen Elizabeth II, after 70 years on the throne. 

What a long and magnificent life she had led, having had the privilege to see so much of modern history first hand, with 15 British prime minister serving under her reign, from Sir Winston Churchill to Liz Truss, who only replaced Boris Johnson three days ago.

Could any mortal have lived a more illustrious and meaningful life like the late Queen? Family, wealth, fame, power (arguably) and the adulation of millions? She altered the world in her own gentle and subtle ways; she lived a long, happy and comfortable life, enjoying good health until the very end. Could anyone have asked for more out of a mortal existence?

If that is not a good life, as we mortals define it, I don't know what is.  But what does it say about the lives of us ordinary mortals, who lead humdrum existence, unknown and un-feted by the world? Do we need to leave behind a legacy, to be remembered by many for our lives to be considered worthwhile?

I posed many questions which I am now going to meditate upon. When we say, we are honoured and remembered by the world, we mean that our existence leaves behind something that made changes into the life of many. We had an effect. Hitler is remembered but for the wrong reasons. We wouldn't want to lead a life as 'meaningful' as his, would we? 

We have to leave a legacy of positive effect on the world. You and I are descendants of people who must have had suffered hardships, if not recently, at least in the past before. They pulled through, to perpetuate their DNAs, leading to you, which is the latest incarnation of this drive for survival, of life itself. 

But what is so precious about us, as individual egos, that needs perpetuation?

So what if our DNA and our deeds do make a difference on this pale blue dot, floating in the cosmos ocean? Should the ancestors of our gut bacteria feel proud or happy about it? Will we be able to look down from our cloud perch in heaven, and admire the beauty of our handiwork on Earth?

This incarnation of yours, is simply a rising and falling of a wave, in the vastness of the ocean. The actions of every wave, in its own small way, do affect the entire ocean. Or are waves simply the effect of this huge mass of water which we call the ocean?

Whenever we feel pride, we are looking at the ocean from the viewpoint of the wave, who thinks it did its part in the turbulent storm that tossed ships around like plastic toys in a bathtub. When the wave dies, it disappears into the ocean, only to be 'reincarnated' as another wave, based on the distribution of energy in the system. Does the new wave remember its previous deeds? Or perhaps, the wave one day wakes up and find that it is pointless to talk from the small perspective of the wave and that it is part of something much bigger, which is the ocean?

We lead our lives as waves in the ocean. Perhaps one day, we will all awaken and realise that we are the ocean and all the mortal concern of waves are rather laughably petty. Even the ocean itself is but a small part of a larger system--Gaia, our Mother Earth, which is a planetary ego, and a successful one at that, perhaps the celebrity of the solar system.

Let's lead our simple lives as waves first and do our best within the sphere of our existence. But we must  have this realisation that whatever we think of as the pinnacle of human achievement is only meaningful from a very limited viewpoint. Existence itself is much vaster than what we could comprehend with our puny minds. And so we ride along happily, as tiny waves, awaiting its moment of awakening.