Chapter 53: Man-Made

I am quite sure most of you have heard of the 2012 rumours. That which I see no concern for, since nothing can prevent death, assuming these rumours are true, even if you were to gain all the almighty knowledge in the world for an eye.

And there have been certain religious groups going around claiming to be the potential sole survivors of this judgement, once againing, assuming there is a judge.

I, for one, prefer to remain an free-thinker for my own personal reasons, which while you see them as illogical (of which I do not care), I see as good enough for my own life.

And what are these reasons?

One, in my opinion, I see religions as groups of people who share a common set of beliefs which shape their view of the metaphysical and supernatural world. And I do very much admire the idea of people building harmony and bonds through common beliefs, but at the same time, I think this also requires the sufficient ability to understand and tolerate the beliefs of others.

Without this ability, which is as important as personal strength, I see religious efforts bringing an adverse effect of disharmony through conflicts that clash.

By far, I have yet to see significant harmony and unity benefits of religious movements. Rather, all I have seen are the forcing of people into throwing away their original ideas to surrender like an unwilling puppet to that of others. I cannot see religions as being different to warring states. And I have no desire to partake in conflicts of interests.

Up until now, for as far as I have seen, I dislike the calling of people to join religions that claim a better afterlife. I do not like to succumb to fears of afterlife, something that I have yet to have a fulll understanding of.

If there is an omnipotent force of the world who is willing to throw people who do not attend sunday church or forget to say their prayers into burning pits of lava, especially if they have no true malice at heart, then I would rather not support such cruelty. This is far from the loving, benevolent, forgiving lord who carries the sins of men whom I had heard of.

I have little urge to follow a book or set of beliefs written by mortal men who claim it to be the words of the lord himself.

Speaking of claims, I do realise that certain religions do not encourage curiosisty or ambitions into matters that, according to them, do not matter in life and conflict with the ideal life.

But, being someone who studies science, I have come to liking to be curious (controlled under standard ethics depending on the country) and, experiementing and observing to test hypothesises. Having complete faith in something I cannot see does not suit me at all. I am not saying faith is bad thing, but that it just does not suit my personality.

The way I see it, what we want to do or follow, depends on how well it suits us and works out for us. This is why understanding and tolerating is so important here.

Perhaps I may change my mind if I see changes before my eyes.

Until then.

Chapter 52: Impending Destiny

I wonder... is this 'ultimate reality' we see before us merely the converging of what we collectively percieve, with different aspects and opinions clashing at the same time. If that is so, is true harmony, or a 'perfect, complete world' one whereby we eventually believe in the same objectives together, in order to eliminate the chaos.

And, if the earth really does die, do we really need to care about the destination, or the end state of the earth? After all... there is nothing we can truly do. Maybe rather than panicking, a better move would be to think about the journey instead, and live life as per normal, or how we want it to be. Is it worth spending time counting down to inevitable death?

Speaking of impending destiny, I just realised that I have been winning most of the chess games I played recently at the international chess club (Wednesday evening when I am free, air-con and 2 hours, why do you think I chose this CCA?).

And through playing and thinking back, I guess I did learn some things from this old game of mysterious origins and deep history.

It reminds me of concepts in war. For instance, war is a terrible ordeal. Every side involved are bound to lose at least something, and in the end, only one will earn victory. But then, what is left of your comrades and people? All gone, exchanged for the lives of the enemies. All soldiers really were to the player are nothing more than trinkets and tokens for checkmate.

Losses are inevitable, unless the opposition is really incompetent and throws away lives unknowingly. Therefore, most of the time, we focus on minmizing our losses, and making the enemy suffer heavier ones.

But checkmate, or absolute victory, really is a great feeling. It is as if everything you did came down to this final moment, and you can taste the fear in the air, and impending destiny and victory ahead. It is as though, no matter what happens next, you have won.

This game is not as unpopular or boring as you think. In fact, if you like, you can try it yourself. The more you learn about true tactics and strategies, you will come to appreciate the game. The history and origins are very interesting too. Do not just look on the surface. After all, how do you know that it is boring, if you have never tried to actually enjoy the game.

Until then.

Chapter 51: Absolute Truth

There has been a question that has always been persisting me up until now, perhaps, from the age of 7 years of age. 12 years...

Is this world that I see and feel, and this 'life' I am living, just a dream created from my own mind and perspective?

Is this simply a dream?

We see news of deaths and accidents, we feel pain, and we feel happiness. But how do we know if we only think of pain as pain, or of happiness as happiness, because we see it that way?

Do we mold the structure of the world we live in and see? If so, do we each have a personal world that is modified to some extension by our own minds? Whereby the majority of these personal worlds have similarities that allow them to partially converge together into what we call 'reality'?

If this is so... if I am simply 'sleeping' and 'living' a 'dream'... than what is the absolute truth? Or is there even one?

To that extent, I have come to think of a possible idea.

Is everything simply data? Even these thoughts that flow through me could simply be data.

Let's say... that this possibility is very real.

Then everything would be data shaped, restructured and degraded, all according to our programming.

In this case, is it possible that we use very similar programs to structure and modify these data? These data structures may simply be alternate forms of the very same play dough we used.

And, perhaps through upgrading, and generating more thoughts, learning more from other different views and perspectives, would it be possible to change the data to something we all agree on? Maybe a world that we can all share in harmony.

Perhaps. This is, after all, just another possibility.

Until then.

Chapter 50: Whatever Comes To Mind

As the title suggests, I cannot really think of one, since I simply write whatever comes to mind on every update without a topic of focus. After all, this is a blogsite/notepad for random scribbles. Just like a piece of paper I play tic-tac-toe or sketch on whenever the priority of listening attentively to lectures is not on the top of the A to-do list.

And like that piece of paper, this usually occurs very seldomly. Just like the updating of this blogsite.

Nevertheless, this is really it. I finally achieve the first checkpoint of reaching the 50th chapter. No confetti or champagne though. This blogsite is kind of budget. No pictures, no videos, no fancy decorations. Other than a good ol' game of pacman. This is a sort of book anyway. And what kind of tome has videos or music in it? Just good ol' fashioned words. Describing things that come to mind. Must not be a very high-selling book though.

50th chapter... despite inconsistent posting...

Either way... time to move on the topic of focus. Well... I did say there was not any topic of focus on usual days... but who said this was a usual day? And I just decided to put one topic today anyway. This is, after all, my random sketching paper in blogsite form.

"I dare you to -insert random challenge- or are you just a -insert random insult referring to lack of courage-?"

Does this look similar?

It gets me wondering sometimes... what exactly is courage?

Well, to me, there is courage even in refusing this kind of challenge. Or even accepting it.

The condition is whether you have the courage to face up to peer pressure and influences and decide things on your own terms.

If you simply accept the challenge just because you are afraid of being at laughed at or give in to the taunting of others... than I would pretty much call you a coward.

Courage lies in doing the sensible thing without the interference of outside factors.

But it also takes courage to accept certain factors and make full use of them. Do not let factors suppress you but use them to propel you.

What is courage? Well, that is your decision.

Did I not say that having the courage to make decisions is important? After all... who am I to declare that my opinions are completely right?

Your future, your courage, your decision.

Until then.

Chapter 49: And With The Sound 'Boom', Critisms from Omnipotent Judges Come In...

Time for a new entry and chapter. Tis a rare phenomenon to be witnessed whereby I have written posts of such frequency these few weeks indeed, if I do say so myself.

I am sure most people who have read yesterday's news have come across the article titled, ''Rad'-hot Ris Low'. And for those of us who happen to be Singaporeans, or are those several foreigners who have heard of her, I am quite confident that it would not be necessary to conduct a short introduction to the profile of this very well-known lady, or that of why she has achieved such fame, or from the persepctives of others, notoriety.

If I recall from the days I spent at English lessons taken at secondary school, my ex-classmates and I were often reccomended to partake in discussions with the general public so as to further our konwledge of the world, and improve our critical reasoning skills. In the process, of course, our command of the language was to improve.

However, I did not have the confidence to do so publicly, and thus I have resorted to something similar but of a smaller scale, that is, to write my opinions on my personal blogsite.

Hence, let us begin.

From the comments that I had read, I noticed quite a few mentioning how the authors were not in favour of her new found confidence and drive in building up a new, positive image, while doing what I like to call 'damage control'.

Well, in my humble opinion, I very much liked the sound of her looking towards the future in a bright light, and I felt as though there was nothing despicable about her clothes preferences, shopping habits, or casual use of personally coined words.

We were all born with a different individual body and mind, and I do not see myself in any position to declare her hobbies or harmless perferences as horendous.

I also noticed that some were commenting on how she should have done more self-reflections.

While I do agree that her crimes should not go unpunished, I feel that they had indeed been sufficiently judged punished by the proper authorities, taking into consideration both her medical conditions, and the obvious crimes that had to be balanced by justice.

But I cannot comment on whether her self-reflection was sufficient as there is not enough information included in the article for me to do so accurately enough.

Nevertheless, I applaud her new found drive for life.

I also found her courage to have entered the competition very commendable. This, in my opinion, was a respected clash of different opinions and perspectives as to what the qualities that should represent Singapore in general, mediated by experienced judges. One of these opinions in the clash was Ms. Ris Low's, and I find nothing wrong with her wanting to test them with such courage and tenacity.

No one said she had to win. In fact, if you wish to blame someone, then blame the judges. They were, after all, the ones who made the final judgement. The authorities who perceived those judges as dependable enough were also at fault.

Ms Low was simply one of those many contestants who dared to put her image to the test.

However, I do agree that her opinion that those who criticised her would have behaved and presented themselves in more or less the same way as she did, was not entirely correct.

Firstly, I feel that the only way to prove that theory is to have all these people whom she accused take part in the very same competiton, which is of course, quite impossible.

And commenting on how atrocious her command of english and manners compared to oneself, was a very strange way of presenting oneself as a gracious citizen fo Singapore who knows when to criticise and when to lay off (especially when I do not see any profit or beneifts gained from commenting like that).

Everyone's opinion is biased and influenced by one's attitude and view to a minimum extent.

That said, I did not like her sweeping statement of those who criticised her to be cowards or bespectacled computer addicts. She does not have enough evidence to support those words at all.

As a matter of fact, it may be true that some of them were indeed cowards, but what she should be spending her time doing is not calling them names or putting them into cliche stereotypes, but instead analyzing their useful points and learning from them, in order to further her evident drive into a bright future.

Calling them as such would simply lower her to their level, or even worse.

Until then.

"Justice and faith, ignorance and escapism. They never learn. They never listen! "

"After all, people can only understand what they’ve experienced."

- Rau Le Creuset, Fictional Character of Gundam Seed series, from Sunrise.

Chapter 48: Only Human

Going through this new semester has only brought me down to reality. It made me remember the limitations of being human.

True, we all try to soak up the punishment and pain of absorbing every lecture, tutorial and practical there is, and even go over daily revisions. This was the very same routine last semester. But through this, memories of the lessons of being limited in endurance and speed were recovered.

Sometimes I think they make up all these creative anatomy names, and names of bacteria and diseases just for the fun of watching us squirm.

I realise that it is possible that my mind is limited, but I'm not going to admit it outloud. The plan is to just find some way to overcome it, pretending that there is no shred of pressure within me just for the sake of pride and go all out. I will never admit weakness even if I lose everything and the irritating rumours of 2012 do come true.

After all, when the going gets rough, we will all just get going, right?

Until then.