Chapter 65: Let's Talk About Opinions

Another post, another opportunity spent idling time and energy away. Chalk one more up to procastination.

But moving on to the main point of the post of today, I have to wonder, what exactly are our views on reality?

In other words, what kind of rules do we derive from how we see the world? Maybe we might not see it that way, but most of us live by a set of personal rules.

Sometimes, these are partly or completely derived by outside influences and the environment.

But what I am interested in is, how our personal perspectives of what we see affects these sets of rules.

Unless we are really obedient to our peers and fellow men, we are very likely to be extremely subjective in almost everything we do.

That is to say, the rules we derive are have general similarities to each other, either due to cooperative influences from each other, or from living in the same environment or reality, or perhaps from adaption itself.

For me, whatever I have written in this post all comes from the set of rules I live by. I feel that this means we should try our best to respect each other's opinions.

Of course, it is possible that being in positions of greater powers tempts us to believe we should make the ultimate set of rules and suppress that of others who may oppose us.

Is this what the world really is about? After all, in my humble opinion, no matter how hard you try, you cannot change the human heart. With two feet in the coffin, it is ultimately your own will you take with you, not that of others.

Supression and taming of the spirits of others seems futile.

But, I suppose, that is up to what you think.

Until then.

Chapter 64: A Miracle

Chancing upon a souvenir of the past, I remembered something.

The day I came to believe in miracles was around the most unlikely time.

I was beaten down in everything I did,and I knew nothing would get better. So, all I did was walk down without thinking, searching for defeat.

Until a miracle occured. And I could never forget that moment. That day, I felt like everything was right, and that nothing could ever go wrong at all. Like all the world was in harmony and I felt complete.

A pity that time has passed though.

Chapter 63: Blaze Beyond

The intense heat of the blazing flames surrounding was something beyond belief. An eternity from which I knew the end.

"This is it. The final curtains of impending destiny falling in a blaze of defeat. My paper-thin life had finally been used up." These thoughts ran down my memory stream. A fall down the stream, rapidly enough to force a humble bow to my obvious futility in efforts to hang on to hope.

Hope. Amusing how many have said that the blaze of hope was the most beautiful sight. Even more so to realise how I had been so wrong. The blaze of defeat I see before my poisoned eyes is beyond simply appealing in vision. A blaze that has cleansed my sight once and for all. A final gift to me by the pity of the universe.

How could I have failed to understand this before? And how long had the aromatic, sweeetened drug of illusions hidden my sight from the truth?

Not that it mattered anymore, for the ultimate truth laid before me. Yes, the blaze of truth.

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I needed to write something and coincidentally, I was planning a new post today. Even more so was that I had no idea for a topic. So I simply wrote the first part of the story I had in mind. Been a while since I did some fictional writing. If I think of it, I might post the next part up sometime later.

Chapter 62: Alive! But Tomorrow...

If any one ever discovers this post, and can understand it fully and clearly, it means my brain is still alive despite the immunology genocide.

But then... here comes round two. Medical microbiology. There aren't many notes this semester that are new, so I think it should not be too bad. So long as I rely on my semi-photographic memory and focus. Sounds like a camera, from the way I describe my tools, huh?

Well, I hope I can still keep my sanity and mind intact after tomorrow, which once again will be indicated by a new post.

This is only the beginning, and the road is long and tough. But that doesn't matter.I know I had been waiting for this. I'm walking it, easy or tough, and that is reality and all that concerns me.

Until then.

Chapter 61: This is It

No, this is not the latest film made by recovered footage of the last rehearsal concerts of a deceased world famous pop music artist.

But what it is, is the beginning of a long, grueling two weeks worth of final examinations. Which I spent the last two weeks (yes, last minute, what can I say? projects, reports and assignments held me back) preparing for.

Tomorrow would be a 1 hour paper revolving around 'Introduction to Immunology' which I believe I am prepared for.

The format seems quite simple, and the notes are easier to revise than that of the rest of the 6 modules.

If I get out of this with at least half of what is left of my precious brain cells intact, this will be evident by my ability to post more in understandable language.

May the barriers, innate and adaptive systems, with the power of immunoassays, protect us all from autoimmunity, immunodeficiency diseases, hypersensitivity cases, reproductive immunology attacks. Also, may vaccination guide us.

And cytokines for us all.

Until then.

Chapter 60: Scam Letter Flaws

As a way of relieving my pressure, I have decided to dissect the many flaws of a common everyday scam letter just for the amusement of it.

The biggest flaw around here is that most letters do not state how they found your contact and why they chose you as their target to receive that large sum of money.

Sometimes they will say that they feel that they can trust in you and know you very well, despite the fact that you never openly or intently shared your personal details with them, much less know who they are.

Further more, it is most likely that they got such details through underhanded means if you did not intent to show them, which makes them seem even more suspicious.

All in all, the question is, 'why you?'.

The reason why those rare 'one born everyday' people will fall for this is because of human arrogance and pride. Everyone thinks that they are destined for greatness and that they alone should stand out and receive the best. Sure, it is great for one to have such a positive attitude, but it is this attitude that also become their weakness, unless you have street-smarts with you.

Next, for goodness sake, can't they be more original and surprise me? It's usually an obscenely large sum of money or huge investment, involving a roughly undeveloped country, a terminal disease, a dead or dying person, or a widow.

You would think they should invest a little in being creative. How can they call themselves scam 'artists' if they lack creativity?

And if only they will stop using God's name at every opportunity they can and making it sound all so overdramatic. And it would also be nice if they stopped all that boot-licking.

Those who sincerely need help should reach out for the government or any trusted societies.

Until then.

Chapter 59: Set in Motions

Something touched my thoughts when I had a talk with my elder cousin at the last reunion dinner for Chinese New Year Celebrations Eve. He and his wife asked me if I was enjoying my school life and whether I was looking forward to serving National Service, or rather, if I was prepared.

I answered as to how I would at that time. I know that attempting to delay such inevitable events would only lead to pain and wastage of energy. I know that there is no point in doing so, and that my only solution and will is to move forward through the future events set in motion.

But that led me to think. If my will was to push forward into the future without delaying anything, would it not lead to the final door of death?

If so, then what is the proof of my existence? What kind of souvenir can I take back on this trip?

After some thoughts, the answer became clear to me. My mission here was to collect memories, the deeper and more meaningful, the better. Through these memories, I would establish an form of eternal existence, or you might even say immortality. And it is through this that I shall satisfy my desires and move on to greater heights. This shall be the way that I shall merge into the circle for greater heights.

But through these journey, there is of course pain and stumps alog the way. But whenever that happens, I think of how somewhere, out there, there is a fellow traveller who is suffering more than I am. And that if I were to surrender and yield, I would be dishonoring and disgracing these people. Therefore, I should bare with it and count myself fortunate instead. In this way, I can change suffering to motivation to push forward.

Well, if seems strange, I must agree, and clearly, I am not logician. But hey, if it works for me, than it does.

Until then.

Chapter 58: I Can't Move!

Recently, I experienced something which used to happen quite a few times in the past.

A few days ago, I woke up in the middle of the night to find that I could not move any of my limbs or body at all. What I meant was, I knew I was awake, but it was as though I had suddenly lost control of my body. It felt just the same way as it had in the past, as though ropes had bound me. Fortunately, I administered my usual response by focussing on snapping those ropes and moving, which had success in a less than a minute. But the terror was still the same. It felt like a phobia of sorts. Similar to claustrophobia.

This usually happens to me when I have a dream, which is quite an uncommon occurance. Only this time, there was no dream that I could recollect, which I found unusual.

These dreams were not pleasant ones either. They usually consisted of the feeling of falling down, thinking I have an overdue report despite full knowledge that there is no way for that to be real, dreaming of an examination where I could not answer enough questions in time, and dreaming that there were only a few days from an examination that I had not prepared for.

I am not sure if anyone has ever experienced the same, but now I am quite worried. On deeper thoughts, is this even natural, or is there something wrong with my nervous system? I am not so sure.

Chapter 57: Improvement or Degradation?

We say that our fellow humankind have improved throughout the years.

I suppose it does seem like it, does it not? Looking at the tall skyscrapers and towers erected, and at the marvels of steel and concrete that we achieved, as well as the great monuments and sophisticated equipment and processes we created, this seems hard to deny.

But that is only on the surface.

Looking beyond that, destruction seems to come before creation, does it not?

Take an origami crane for example. We destroy the potential time we had for other activites and the multiple future options, as well as the durability and usefulness of the paper we once had, in order to create such a work of art.

And how about the paper itself? To create it, did we not have to crush and mash wood pulp from trees into such necessities? And even through recycling, we use electricity and power in order to do so.

So, in a way, I suppose, some things are improved, but for the sake of doing so, we have to degrade something else. Just like the science of energy. It can only be transferred and transformed into something else, but by doing so, we erase it's present form.

For the sake of new cities and homes, we took away the potential alternate uses of the land targetted.

For the sake of learning and preservation, we locked animals within cages, but in that sense, we also made sure that they had a safe environment. And credit has to be given to our ensuring that the environment thet live in is as similar to their natural habitats as possible.

Whether we have improved, or degraded, it really is up to how you see it, in light of what you want to achieve.

Life is simple, huh? I can never see it that way. I see it as complicated.