Roundtable Discussion

A friend I know well, her friend (I don't know that well) and I. A roundtable discussion about life - one of those things you do when you eat cake and drink tea (and nope, this is not the host club I'm talking about).

And so he's some kind of a med school student (said friend), and I figured that he didn't have any idea what to do with life. A simpler way to put it would be: there're many things that he can be, most promising of which is to be an eye doctor.

But complex questions asked deserve vague answers at best: what of such a vocation should he make of it?

Me being my helpful self decided to tell the stupid gynaecologist story (which I reserved for those special occasions where a med school student is present: no one has yet caught on that it was a total fabrication). The stupid gynae story goes thus:

A med school friend of mine graduated recently from school and decided to practise in a sex clinic as a gynae. As part of his job, he had to look at a whole lot of vaginas and, other than making him lose his appetite, it absolutely ruined his sex life for the better part of six months. He didn't eat well, he couldn't enjoy any of the hardcore jap porn he collected on his PC, and he definitely found no joy pleasuring himself. Poor sod.

In any case, he got over the initial disgust and now totally immerses himself in the work (which consist of mainly him putting his gloved fingers up very small spaces and getting them wet; the fingers). So as the days went by, he grew more nonchalent about it, and found some joy in making jokes about his patients and derived amusement from the interactions with his various patients: the well-worn prostitutes, the terrified pinafored schoolgirls, the mothers-to-be.

One day, he found himself at his cynical best when a patient walked in, mentioned something about missing her period, and got herself plonked and examined. It turned out that she was 2 months pregnant, and the dear gynae friend decided that congratulatory greetings were in order.

"Congratulations madam. You are pregnant."

"But... but that can't be."

"Yes, you are pregnant."

"It's impossible... I've never had sex before."

"Er... Unless you were artificially inseminated (which you WOULD know about), then you must have had sex. You ARE pregnant."

"It can't be... I've never had sex before."

And so it went, back and forth. Gynae says she's pregnant. She insists she's an innocent virginal girl. Fed up with the pointlessness of it all, said gynae went to the window and shoved it wide open. He looked out, gazing at nothing in particular. After a tense 30 seconds, the virginal innocent couldn't take any more of the nonsense and asked, "What are you looking at?"

Said gynae's wicked reply was "Well, the last time this happened, there was a star in the East."

I did say it was a stupid story...

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Right, it was a roundtable discussion about life-changing moments, and apparently, for late 20-somethingers, there hasn't been admittedly many of these. The one life-changing moment I brought myself round to mention was a sad one, for which I never gave any details.

I did say it resulted from a conversation I had.

I did say that a month later, it resulted in a friendship lost.

I did say also that losing a friend wasn't all that was lost in that moment, for something of my soul went with it as well.

I also said that life-changing moments are those times when your soul is scarred, altered and marred by an external occurence. Nevermind that it might have been a positive development - at the point life changed, it was nothing more than losing some part of your real self.

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Yes it is not something to talk about in an MBA class, but the course is something special at INSEAD: the topic was on coping with stress, and yes religion is one way of helping the human psyche cope with the stress of the world.

I also don't deny that having absolute faith is good for the soul: the person with real faith is not necessarily free from stress, but he does have an outlet and a coping mechanism that, bar none, is far better than what any psychologist can do for you.

Plus... its free.

But losing your religion is not a step forward, and there's where I disagree. No matter what creed or faith we bind ourselves to, having no one to build a common belief with is fundamentally wrong. It is like being an island unto oneself, and floating adrift in isolation. For to believe only in one self and one's abilities is limiting - the mind and especially the body are finite. The infinite gives us hope no matter how faint the sound of that voice might be.

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Ah my pseudo-philosophical babble. I consume too much bullshit these days.

Google-Addled and Familiar Sights from London

A couple of weeks back, I decided to make this website contribute a little to the greyscalefuzz get-rich-and-retire fund by adding Google ads. Making this blog a somewhat more commercially viable enterprise was just an exercise in seeing what that new-fangled Google tool could do. And I ended up being more interested in what ads they pulled out with the words written on my entries.

One thing that caught on immediately was my brief reference to the D_a Vin_ci Co_de - lots of links to Christian websites debunking Mr Brown's wild theories. Another one that was more recent gave me a link to a site that had a detailed theological explanation of Jo_hn chapter 1. Interesting stuff - I think it is good to know that a true reading of the bible need also involve some understanding of the context, and the language it was originally written in.

(Oh, in case you're wondering what explains those underscores... '_', I'm trying to see if they fool GoogleAds - I don't really want the same results returned again, like a broken record... that annoying thing)

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London.

I kind of liked and disliked London all at the same time. I've always liked old cities with a lot of history and culture behind it. Everything is in English - the signs, the announcements on the Tube, the maps. Everything is immediately understandable and not too much of a cultural shock. I can actually order a quarter pounder, fries and coke light without tongue twisting in excruciating French, or getting all signy-pointy with Spanish counter staff.

What I hated though was the whole hustle and bustle of a big city - I think any city with a population in excess of 2 million, and owning a subway system qualifies as a big city. And cities having subways are annoying in the way that they swallow individuals up and spew them out in mass quantities at precise locations within them. The crowding makes people short on temper and short on courtesy at times - I've never felt more small and insignificant. I've never felt more swallowed up than in London (perhaps I might feel the same in Tokyo; I've certainly felt that in New York)

Pics:

The London Eye when your eye cannot see the whole of it from the bottom up.


A small pic to show you everything London: the double decker, Big Ben, part of the London Eye, and the unholy mating of the London Cab and Hello Kitty (pink cab, bottom right)


Squinty-eyed me 'flying' on the London Eye. Didn't help that I seldom trusted strangers with my camera, so I held it by myself.


Kids, this is the Tower Bridge. NOT the London Bridge of that nursery rhyme fame.


My favourite pic from London does not show anything Londony at all. :) A couple holding hands and walking away. Ahhh....


Picadilly Circus (did I get that right?) Busy junction et al.


Scene from one of those ubiquitous Tube stations. Someday, I got to go back and get a better shot at these places - damn hard with people walking all over the place and shoving you towards the tracks.

See other pics of London here

The Word

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." John 1:1-5

One of the most abstract ideas that came from the bible was concerning the Word. The Word from the above passage obviously refers to Jesus. But just as simply, I think the passage is trying to hint at the power of the spoken word - Jesus, being God's son, came to the World to spread His Word, and it was with such a notion that the writer of the Gospel of John regarded Jesus.

(Oh, on a side note, theologians will actually use this phrase to expound on a whole load of information, such as that this phrase explicitly mentions Jesus as God, and not as a being created by God. As such, he isn't man, but God in the flesh.)

Anyhow, I just wanted to start with something that brings me to my real topic: words are powerful things, whether they be written or spoken. Words have the power to change or even to stymie change, and the first instance of such a thing happening (and again I quote from the bible) was when God created the world: Let there be light, and there was light. Amazing how something spoken (albeit by a omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent being like God) can have the power to create and to bring forth something new.

But that's just the bible... or is it? How is it that we, as mere human beings, have allowed words to affect how we act or how we feel? How is it that we have afforded mere words that much power?

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Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. I disagree - I think words can hurt. I know - I've experienced it so personally before. When you love someone and he/she doesn't love you back, gentle words to decline may soothe the pain. But when someone prefers a quick and dirty way out of a sticky situation, the nastier words the better.

Words can hurt, but I hear it is only because we let them. Can one really be that insensitive to another's utterance or opinion? The answer as I have learnt to say it: It depends.

But I shall not elaborate. :)

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My favourite comic book author (so far) is Alan Moore, the original creator of works such as V for Vendetta, A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Watchmen. Look out for the movies, but don't bother looking for any credits to Mr Moore though - only a genius dissociates from the bastardization of his own work.

In any case, one of his less well known comics was Top Ten. A not so major character (but important to the plot) from the story was called Harry Lovelace, the hostage negotiator otherwise known as 'The Word'. The Word's power (it is a comic book and he is a super hero amidst a book filled with them) comes from his ability to compel people who hear him speak obey him. He is very, in a word, persuasive.

See, all he has to say is 'Put your hands up!' and you're compelled to do just that, without any rhyme or reason to. I think it is an especially useful ability to have: need cash? Just compel people on the street to hand the money in their wallets to you. Want sex? Just ask for it.

But the Word is really a metaphor more than a real character - the Word is like that character you have to obey in real life. The boss, your sergeant, the missus. Anyone with the power to say something to make you do an action, or to feel an emotion. Like an order issued for you to quickly get an assignment done. Or a guilt trip to emotionally blackmail you for not buying her flowers for her birthday.

(Sidenote: I think that being the Word in the comic book isn't all it is cut out to be though. Suppose you can't turn that ability off, and whatever you say is going to be taken literally. You can't really joke around much, like when someone tells some really kick-ass joke, and you're laughing your hardest, and you happen to utter "Ah you're killing me". Imagine what the consequences would be.)

So, in a way, having the power of the Word - whether it means that you're the one with the power to order someone, or to create specific emotions in someone else - you are responsible for the words you speak, so speak them with care.

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In a recent episode of the anime xxxHoLiC, a character, one of a pair of twins, has an inferiority complex. She lets whatever she hears about herself influence her person, and much of what she had heard were negative comments from her twin sister. In and of itself, the words that she had heard were not meant to limit her abilities - the fact is that she herself acts as an amplifier for the words spoken, and they become a limiting mechanism.

Simply put, if you keep hearing someone say that you're clumsy, and you believe it to be true, then you will be clumsy.

Perhaps it comes down to 2 factors... no 3 factors: the issuer, the receiver and the amplifier. The issuer speaks, the receiver listens, but it's the amplifier that makes either something sound trivial, or makes it the most compelling thought-provoking message ever heard. (And here I start getting reminded of my uni days as an electrical engineering undergrad - hard to imagine now, but those amplifiers we were all made to build have such enormous philosophical relevance, and yet, we were so caught up in the capacitors, resistors and general circuitry of it all that we fail to see the amplifier as nothing more than a goddamn hindrance to graduation)

The amplifier comes in many forms but I believe the one most important is that amplifier inside of oneself. Some people I know manage to tune that amplifier to only hear what they want to - like a low-pass filter of sorts, they filter off all the high frequencies and hear the good parts (the bass). Some others are unable to hear the good parts, and tune in only to negative comments, on which they remind themselves of their fragility.

I can't offer a way to tune that amplifier to hear the whole message though, and it is only human to tune in or tune out as we see fit. Perhaps it is important to realise that we inherently tune the messages we hear, and that should be sufficient to know. I have always heard that it is important to analyse what you hear in the context of what the issuer is saying - perhaps that is where I shall start now.

I shall start listening - without tuning.

Can you spare some change?

Delirium says in her orange voice balloon: When you say words a lot they don't mean anything. Or maybe they don't mean anything anyway, and we just think they do.

Being a purveyor of change (in my line of work), it was with some surprise that I found myself in a reactionary mood when given the chance to change. I've been given a ticket out of purgatory that is my job; instead of jumping for joy at the prospect, I've been racked with by hesitation and... the fear of change.

Ultimately though, I've decided to go for it. It is a good change after all, and it means I come out of it (hopefully) a better person. This journey of change will begin with the new year, and it will be the first time I've made a move out of my current job situation.

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It is understandable that we all fear change to some degree - I've always advocated change if it was for the better, or was necessary for improvement in the current circumstances. My change though, won't improve current circumstances in the short term. It will, in fact, be really hard to cope with for a year or so.

The truth for me is, if I don't change, I'll die. No, I won't die literally, but I will die spiritually. The longer I stay in my current steady state, the more I find myself dug further into a hole, stuck like that frog at the bottom of the well, entrenched like a World War One infantryman. I believe that we do not play dice with God - if He gambles big, so do you. And that's where I am - I'm putting everything on the line for this one.

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Caution is a bane - it binds you to a set of principles you've defined to limit yourself. Caution is option - the option to back down, take the well-trodden approach. Caution is to live like today will be repeated tomorrow, tomorrow being as certain to turn out the same as today.

Caution is also living to expectations, doing enough to meet demands. Caution is to regard change as the work of the devil - what good is there in uncertainty? Can you measure it? Cautiously?

Tread with care and you'll dread to bear (the pain).

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A wise man told me once: God gave us free will because He loves us as a father loves his children. It would have been so much easier for God to have been absolutely dictatorial in His creation - rob us of free will and reign over our lives, dictating every move from the point of creation till the end of time. But what good is that to his creation, if they can't chart their own destiny? Humans would never have learnt to explore and experiment, and they would never have found God on their own.

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The most absolute form of love you can give your children is to set them free - give them that opportunity to explore and experiment. Advise, but don't dictate - for isn't that what God does? Prayer to God isn't about making demands or prostating oneself in deference to a mighty being. Prayer is about communication and hearing the voice of reason.

I think we ultimately choose our destiny - though it does appear there is someone to guide us along.

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If a chance for change should come your way, jump at it with all your heart and don't look back. If I don't change, I might as well die for lack of enthusiasm. It may be a black hole now, but you might come out the other side pleasantly surprised.

I don't want to play dice twice.

What's a life worth

If you've seen the movie Constantine, you'll probably remember that the Rachel Weisz character (Isabel I think?) has a twin sister. This twin took her own life and promptly went to Hell. According to Catholic doctrine, committing suicide is such a big sin that you're sent to Hell immediately.

What is the rationale behind this school of thought? Here, I'd like to give my take on this. I think that we are not supposed to take our own lives because our bodies are meant to be a temple to God. To wilfully destroy this temple is such sacrilege that there can be no bigger sin. Each one of us, after all, is God's creation. And we give Him praise through our actions and deeds. Killing oneself goes against all tenets of this belief.

Personally though, I don't entirely subscribe to this form of thinking. Remember that there is no 'hierarchy' of sins - sins are just sins, and if taking your life is a sin, it is no greater a sin than theft or murder is. What is so unpardonable about committing suicide that one should be condemned to eternal damnation? Even murderers on death row have a chance at redemption. Side note: it is kind of hard to redeem yourself while you're still alive if your sin is suicide, don't you think?

I do agree on one point though: we won't be alive in the first place if not for God. He's the reason we exist. Thus, we are accountable to some degree for how we've lived our lives. Our time on this Earth is but training for eternity, and it is imperative that we live it to its fullest. To take one's life is to rebuke this opportunity. It is not a short cut to the after-life - it is chickening out of a responsibility in its worst form. God will ultimately hand judgement on such individuals, be it damnation or bliss.

A reservist friend of mine said it best - there's nothing in life that is insolvable. Depression can drive us to do the unimaginable, but there is always help somewhere.

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By the way, as a Christian, I'm (more or less) of certain Judeo-Christian inclinations regarding life, death, God and the after-life. Feel free to express other views of the issue. I don't think I'm done expressing what I think though. More opinions later...