Lockean Practicality

"Since the world is what it is, it is clear that valid reasoning from sound principles cannot lead to error; but a principle may be so nearly true at to deserve theoretical respect, and yet may lead to practical consequences which we feel to be absurd."

"Locke aimed at credibility, and achieved it at the expense of consistency. Most of the great philosophers have done the opposite. A philosophy which is not self-consistent can very well be wholly false. The most fruitful philosophies have contained glaring inconsistencies, but for that very reason have been partially true."

Bertrand Russell/John Locke

Box' of Shaded Memories #15

I watched too many days pass me by. What is my focus?

Leviathan: Fear of Anarchy and the Duty of Submission

"Hobbes holds that all men are naturally equal. In a state of nature, before there is any government, every man desires to preserve his own liberty, but to acquire dominion over others; both these desires are dictated by the impulse to self-preservation. From their conflict arises a war of all against all, which makes life 'nasty, brutish and short.' In a state of nature, there is no property, no justice or injustice; there is only war, and 'force and fraud are, in war, the two cardinal virtues."

"Hobbes considers the question why men cannot cooperate like ants and bees. Bees in the same hive, he says, do not compete; they have no desire for honour; and they do not use reason to criticize the government. Their agreement is natural, but that of men can only be artificial, by covenant. The covenant must confer power on one man or one assembly, since otherwise it cannot be enforced. 'Covenants, without the sword, are but words'. The covenant is not, as afterwards in Locke and Rousseau, between citizens and the ruling power; it is a covenant made by the citizens with each other to obey such ruling power as the majority shall choose. When they have chosen, their political power is at an end. The minority is as much bound as the majority, since the covenant was to obey the government chosen by the majority. When the government has been chosen, the citizens lose all rights except such as the government may find it expedient to grant. There is no right of rebellion, beause the ruler is not bound by any contract, whereas the subjects are. A multitude so united is called a commonwealth. This 'Leviathan' is a mortal God."

Unstable Atom and Explosive Energy

There seems to be some sort of a relationship between periods of instability and great cultural eras; and in individuals, unstable personalities and creative genius. This is not a product of whimsical observation. The decline of the church, corrupt clergy, unscrupulous rulers (c.f. Machiavelli) happened in tandem with the renaissance, the works of Da Vinci and Michelangelo. It surely is not a mere coincidence that Cobain, Reznor, Nietzsche, Socrates, Cantona, gay-guy you-know-from-school, happen to exhibit some sort of unexplainable explosive artistry is it? I think there is something in it and more to be said ... in time.

But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others

"... Then they saw what Clover had seen.
It was a pig walking on his hind legs.
Yes, it was Squealer. A little awkwardly, as though not quite used to supporting his considerable bulk in that position, but with perfect balance, he was strolling across the yard ... And finally there was a tremendous baying of dogs and a shrill crowing from the black cockerel, and out came Napolean himself, majestically upright, casting haughty glances from side to side, and with his dogs gambolling round him.
He carried a whip in his trotter.
...Then came a moment when the first shock has worn off and when, in spite of everything - in spite of their terror of dogs, and of the habit, developed through long years, of never complaining, never criticizing, no matter what happened - they might have uttered some word of protest. But just at that moment, as though at a signal, all the sheep burst out into a tremendous bleating of --
'Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better!'"

Father Authority

"Every organization needs strong leadership. At home my word is law. Whatever I say goes. For instance, recently my son wanted a laptop computer for his birthday. I said, "Go ask your mother." And he did. That's respect."

Stephen Colbert

On Politicians

"Nations which select the men who are to govern them might have been expected to choose men commanding universal admiration and affection; it might have been thought that those who were deemed wisest and best would be selected for the delicate and responsible job of managing other people's affairs. This, however, is not the case. In most democratic countries to call a politician is to say something derisive about him ... This is a paradox which was not foreseen by the pioneers of democracy. Indeed, it was not true in their day. When democracy is new it usually brings great men to the fore but it loses this merit as it becomes well established. Why is this?... Meanwhile, let us remember that in a democracy, criticism of our politicians is criticism of ourselves - we have the politicians we deserve."

Bertrand Russell

It sure is ironic that you should not let democracy fully develop for the sake of the nation. When democratic processes are fully established, it becomes a playing field favourable for the popular politician (in the negative sense) and not for a 'governor' - where qualities closer to a good manager, with a good sense of international and ground issues, would be more suitable. The unfortunate limitation of human capacity is such that the people who can 'get there' or usually very different from the people who can 'do it'. When the electorate choose options that will benefit themselves (as people tend to do on promises) and not those 'fit to rule' (which may not benefit the voter), the democratic machine blindsides itself. There is little point in criticizing the democratic system because there isn't anything hitherto better than this bad machine. But all these points toward a view that being more democratic is not necessarily a good thing ... and that we may have arrived at something good, perhaps unintentionally.

The Stillness on the Road

My workplace is considerably far. I spend about two hours on the road, on a public bus, every weekday. During this time, I do a couple of things - read the papers, take a catnap, use the phone, think, fantasize - but most often I listen to music, body and mind still and idle, and gaze at the moving scenery. Contrary to the preference of most people, I don't really dread the locomotion because it gives time to float the weight off my psyche, fill the fissures in my temperament and raise the sensitivities of my intuition. This I believe, is close to what some spirituality-inclined folks regard as the benefits of meditation - a purported enrichment and healing of the soul. It is also close to what some 'people' (for the lack of a better description) like to call 'personal space' - an escape from the unnecessary drama and futile bustle of modern life. I convulse at the use of either terms, meditation or personal space, because one is so 'urgh' (fuddy-duddy? uncool? what!?) and the other is so 'bahh' (emo? corny? what!?). In any case, words are just words and terms terms. The point is that such a still-locomotive 'therapy' (boy, I am on a roll for word loss) is really 'good' (vocab hemorrhage). I refer back to the title, which captures all I really want to say.

There is a line on the left you must not cross

"Modern ideas of liberalism, egalitarian ideals, welfare state concepts ... all these are appropriate in an affluent society, but are largely irrelevant to a nation struggling to escape age-old poverty ... These concepts encourage a propensity to laziness and inaction, inculcate a belief that society owes every man a comfortable living and proliferate trade unions whose main purpose is to get more pay for less work."

Goh Keng Swee

The Dangers of Communism: Marxism, Envy and the Hobbesian Man

As a restless, impressionable teenager who was frequently dissatisfied by my own material well-being, I was easily swayed by Marxist ideas. Throughout the years, I have many times been bought over by it, only to have it fizzled out by the irrelevancy to my day-to-day life. As fortune would have it, and I am fortunate, I never lived in a political milieu where I had a chance for Marxist ideas to germinate. In University, the Marxist scholars that I came to know were mostly hopping on the 'hip', radical bandwagon and severely lacking in any rigorous thought or realistic convictions. On many occasions, admittedly, I identified myself with this ilk of people, if for nothing, just to appear 'smart' or 'critical'.

As I started to think, Marxism began to seem like a frightening joke. Besides not making any economic sense (you don't really need any more evidence than to look at the economic fiascoes in North Korea, Russia, East Germany and the likes); its pitch though seemingly a morally right one, is a dangerously wrong one.

Marxism thrives on a very base and powerful emotion - envy. It borders on the genious of emotive language how Marxism cloaks envy with a cape of justice - that everybody should be equal. Instances where real exploitation takes place are given maximum exposure and unfounded generality. Overwhelmed, envy warps the reader's rationality into a lopsided train of thought that makes an imagined sense of justice so distortedly real. For the intellectually unperceptive, it gives highly-charged motive and erroneous justification for unreasonable action. Marxist material fail to mention one thing: as much as inequality is a very sad fact, it is also a very inevitable, natural phenomenon in any society, a Communist one included.

Communism has a very flawed premise. It conceives of Man in the romantic, as a Rousseau-sort benign nobility. Granted Man having such a capacity, it is closer to the exception rather than the norm. I am of the view, as History and experience has shown me, that Man is of the Hobbesian type. In a Communist society, once the high-falutin ideals start to wear off its charm, he will eventually partake in activities that will benefit himself rather than the greater good. And seeing the Hobbesian man benefit, other men including the romantics because of envy or a sense of justice (familiar?) react. If they are opportunistic, they will do like the Hobbesian man did. If they are not, they will find ways to stop and punish the Hobbesian man. Eventually, they resort to a legal social contract to deter and prevent people from such undesirable behavior. When sanctions originally moralistic turn legalistic to keep order, people's actions originally based on altruism turn into fear of punishment. Consequently, Communism loses its meaning and appeal in the hearts and minds of people; and people soon realise they are hopelessly trapped by rules and sanctions (not to mention physical boundaries and violence witnessed in Eastern Europe and North Korea) with little or no freedom. It befuddles me how Communism can work when its assessment of man is so naive, and throws me into despair how people can still believe it with so much evidence of its repercussions.

Yet, Communism did its part in History; not as it intended but laughingly collateral. It galvanised the poor man's sentiment into an actionable voice; the content of it though erroneous, its form powerful. Governments of the world were reminded not to neglect and pay lip service to the poor, for if they don't protect the interest of the poor man, Communism and its attendant emotive garbage would. That is Communism's greatest legacy - a caveat to governments the Pyhrric victory of the neglected, impressionable poor - its own failure.

The Lessons of Experience

"Most people learning nothing from experience, except the confirmation of their prejudices. To learn anything genuinely from experience requires a kind of open-mindedness which is the essence of the scientific temper, though many men of science are somewhat lacking in it."

Bertrand Russell

Secret Garden

I finally understood what I meant when I told you I could hear your soul screaming looking at your eyes.

It was loneliness.

Are you listening?

VD

Not Everything, No

"There are some roads which we must not follow, some enemy troops we must not fight, some cities we must not attack, some grounds we must not contest, even some orders from the ruler which we must not obey."

Sun Tzu

Look Out

"Think of the different things that may be noticed in the course of a country walk. One man may be interested in the birds, another in vegetation, another in geology, yet another in the agriculture, and so on. Any one of these things is interesting if it interests you, and, other things being equal, the man who is interested in any one of them is a man better adapted to the world than the man who is not interested."

Bertrand Russell

History is a Pendulum

"Cynicism such as one finds very frequently among the highly educated young men and women of [x] results from the combination of comfort with powerlessness. Powerlessness makes people feel that nothing is worth doing, and comfort makes the painfulness of this feeling just endurable. Throughout [y] the university student can hope for more influence upon public opinion than he can have in [x], but he has much less opportunity than in [x] of securing a substantial income. Being neither powerless nor comfortable, he comes a reformer or a revolutionary, not a cynic. The happiness of the reformer or revolutionary depends upon the course of public affairs, but probably even while he is being executed he enjoys more real happiness than is possible for the comfortable cynic."

Bertrand Russell

The above was written in 1930 comparing educated youths of the West and East - sociopolitically, the malaise of the West and purposefulness of the East. Almost 80 years on, this paragraph has struck me as somewhat the reverse, at least to the world that I understand now. Interesting, isn't it.

Social Amnesia

Sun - God - dies solis - Sunday.

Moon - Goddess of Moon - monandaeg - Monday.

Mars - Tyr - dies Martis - Tuesday.

Mercury - wodan (Odin) - Wednesday.

Jupiter - Thor - jove's day - Thursday.

Venus - Frigg - dies veneris - Friday.

Saturn - sater daeg - Saturday.

How did we forget all the Galaxies and Gods and History and Culture and Rituals and Imagination and Fantasy behind our days?

Box' of Shaded Memories #14

Words escape me.

Moral Sentiments

"How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it."

Adam Smith

Box' of Shaded of Memories #13

[Suicide Flower]

All that vast anguish of space,
so much time taken to tread.
Compounded to such an ironic end,
like a yellow flash,
a turn of head,
and a careless shrug.
A suicide flower,
didn't fall from the sky.
In impossible anti-climax,
it laid there lazy,
trying to die,
while basking in the sun.

The only story of the world

What is more limited is more desired, and what is more desired is more valuable, and what is more valuable, by virtue in and of itself, will invite increased acquisition. With increased acquisition, it becomes less limited and then less desired, and then less valuable.

Repeat. For (almost) everything.

Working Class Inspiration

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

[Project P] Theoretical Background 0.1: Political Ideologies

Conservatism (reproduces inequality, for govt intervention):

- inequality as natural aspect of society. Preferable that those from the superior groups should be in positions of power in society and government.

- traditional values provide guidelines for group cooperation and individual behavior. And it is the role of institutions such as the family, the church, the government to communicate and enforce these values.

Classical Liberalism (reproduces inequality, against govt intervention):

- while equality before the law (equality of opportunity) is important, government should not attempt to create material equality (equality of outcomes). People pursue their interests in different ways and with different levels of success. Even in situations of hardship, government action is undesirable because it can undermine individual initiative and independence. Thus government should have no significant role in addressing inequalities.

- role of the government should be limited. Each person should be allowed to act with minimal constraints and free to pursue as much property and wealth as possible. Laissez-faire economy; unconstrained by government regulations.

Socialism (levels inequality, for govt intervention): a vision through which economic and political power could be directed to benefit all groups in society.

Marxist-Leninist Socialism (levels inequality, for govt intervention, use of force)

Democratic Socialism (levels inequality, for govt intervention, use of democratic means)

- emphasize the substantial reduction of inequalities in material conditions, power and status, but they do not attempt to achieve complete equality of material conditions. The approach to change is gradual, placing continued importance on the protection of individual rights and freedoms, even as it transforms the socio-economic order. The government might own some of the major economic resources in the society and it strongly regulates much of the economic system, but it does not attempt to plan and control all aspects of the economic system.


(and so it seems that one political trend is a careful balance between conservatism and democratic socialism. Elsewhere, we see a divide between democratic socialism versus a combination of conservatism and classical liberalism. Labels, labels)

[Project P] Parameters

Key Concern:
The allocation of things that are valued, whether via determination or competition or a compromise of both.

Narrative Methods:
(1) Describing the 'what'; characterization.
(2) Explaining 'how' and 'why'; causes or consequences.
(3) Prescribing the 'should'; recommendations.

A man's character is his fate.

Heraclitus (540 BC - 480 BC)

From fact-finding to negotiation

"There is no substitute for the hard work of preparation."

Winston Churchill

The croak of a clogged voice

And because you cannot hear silence, it makes faint the hollowness that resides in the heart, and uncertain the judgment of the hasty.

Box' of Shaded Memories #12

Gowns in the Sun

An Opening Inquiry on Contentment

I have concluded - through literature, observation and experience - that choice and recognition are the strongest determinants to contentment or discontentment. The first, choice, has two not necessarily related categorical aspects - the having of choices and making good choices. To take money for example, having money gives you choices and even if you don't do anything with the money, the psychological cushion of being able to make choices is significant. Making good choices with your finances, be it an opportune investment or shopping for a good deal, also contributes to contentment. On the contrary, having the lack of choices or making bad choices bring much discontentment - in part due to real consequences, in part psychological - to the actor. Of course, this is not restricted to money and can be applied in many cases where there are decisions to be made.

The second, recognition, is more complex. Being recognised extensively and positively, for whatever reason, lends itself to contentment. The value of the positive here happens in a context. A drug lord scoring a major business is recognised positively by a certain group of people, but recognised negatively by another. As such, it depends very much on how the actor's thought system is aligned and to which 'milieu'. The extent and quality of recognition are obvious augmenters of its contribution to contentment.

(incomplete: its continuence is subjected to the whim of the writer)

What do you believe in?

Ideologies present limited versions of reality and expanded prophesies of what the future holds.

Marvel Universe

Systemic Causation v. Greed

"While causation can sometimes be explained by intentional actions and sometimes by systemic interactions, too often the results of systemic interactions are falsely explained by individual intentions. Just as primitive peoples tended to attribute such things as the swaying of trees in the wind to some intentional action by an invisible spirit, rather than to such systemic causes as variations in atmospheric pressure, so there is a tendency toward intentional explanations of systemic events in the economy, when people are unaware of basic economic principles. For example, while rising prices are likely to reflect changes in supply and demand, people ignorant of economics may attribute the rises to 'greed'...To say that prices are due to greed is to imply that sellers can set prices by an act of will. If so, no company would ever go bankrupt, since it could simply raise its prices to cover whatever its costs happened to be. But the systemic interactions of the marketplace through supply and demand force the high-cost company to keep its prices down to where their competitors' prices are, thereby leading to losses and bankruptcy. Charging higher prices would simply mean more losses of sales and faster bankruptcy."

emphasis mine, Thomas Sowell.

Something obviously went wrong. Prices were raised, companies did go bankrupt, greed is part of the explanation of the financial crisis. Yet, I am of the opinion that the general thrust of the free-market system is effective. The free-market system failed, not because the principles of economics are unsound, but because it left out the law. Regulation is needed to ensure people do not 'cheat' when they are greedy. It is as simple as that.

New York Times backs Obama

"After two years of a gruelling campaign, senator Barack Obama has proven that he is the right choice for president. Mr Obama has met challenge after challenge, growing as a leader and putting real flesh on his promises of hope and change. He has shown a cool head and sound judgment. We believe he has the will and the ability to forge the broad political consensus needed to solve this nation's problems. At the same time, senator John McCain has retreated even farther to the fringe of politics, running a campaign on partisan division, class warfare and even hints of racism. His policies and worldview are mired in the past. His choice of a running mate so clearly unfit for office was a final act of opportunism and bad judgment that eclipsed his 26 years in congress."

Pork and Beans

"Im'ma do the things that I wanna do
I ain't got a thing to prove to you
I'll eat my candy with the pork and beans
Excuse my manners if I make a scene
I ain't gonna wear the clothes that you like
I'm fine and dandy with the me inside
One look in the mirror and i'm tickled pink
I don't give a hoot about what you think."

Weezer

Why markets are left to run on their own

"While markets coordinated by price movements – “capitalism” as it is called – may seem like a simple thing, markets are misunderstood more often than some other things that are considered more complex. Although a free market economic system is sometimes called a profit system, it is in reality a profit-and-loss system – and the losses are equally important for the efficiency of the economy, because losses tell producers what to stop producing. Without really knowing why consumers like one set of features rather than another, producers automatically produce more of what earns a profit and less of what is losing money. That amounts to producing what the consumers want and stopping the production of what they don’t want. Although the producers are only looking out for themselves and their companies’ bottom line, nevertheless from the standpoint of the economy as a whole the society is using its scarce resources more efficiently because decisions are guided by prices."

Thomas Sowell

Choice is Tiresome

"Most of the work that most people have to do is not in itself interesting, but even such work has certain great advantages. To begin with, it fills a good many hours of the day without the need of deciding what one shall do. Most people, when they are left free to fill their own time according to their own choice are at a loss to think of anything sufficiently pleasant to be worth doing. And whatever they decide on, they are troubled by the feeling that something else would have been pleasanter. To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilisation, and at present very few people have reached this level."

Bertrand Russell

The part that never made it to print

A hasty definition of class, by citing Marx, Weber, or prominent class theorists, give an impression of ipse dixit, which in Latin means ‘he himself said it’. It can be argued that this is a logical fallacy because the truth-value of an assertion stems from an appeal to authority. It is, however, not in the interest of this researcher to make such an argument. I want to highlight the fact that the infallibility of theoretical authority cannot be taken-for-granted for and ‘class’ should, in the element of sociology, be problematized and contextualized.

Class is usually understood vis-à-vis stratification. Social stratification is an institutionalized system of social relationships that determines who gets what and why (Kerbo 2006:10). Class is often defined as a grouping of individuals with similar positions and economic interests within the stratification system. Definitions of class focus on the characteristics of a group of individuals. Yet, class is not merely a category, class is a term that carries with it the philosophical baggage of inequality whether intended or not. In essence, when one uses the term class, it implies there is inequality - there is a group of individuals that have more or less access to resources, services and positions. The question of ‘what is class’ is tacitly and necessarily informed by the question of ‘what causes class’. To answer ‘what is class’ without answering the ‘what causes class’ is to assume class is axiomatic; and consequently imply that inequality exists ipso facto. Yet, we cannot know ‘what causes class’ unless we first know ‘what is class’. Any class-based study has to have a working conception of class before knowing what can cause it. This as much is inevitable. Therefore, to understand class, it is important to answer both questions.

The Ant, the Spider and the Bee

"Those who have handled sciences have been either men of experiment or men of dogmas. The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes a middle course: it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own. Not unlike this is the true business of philosophy; for it neither relies solely or chiefly on the powers of the mind, nor does it take the matter which it gathers from natural history and mechanical experiments and lay it up in the memory whole, as it finds it, but lays it up in the understanding altered and digested. Therefore from a closer and purer league between the two faculties, the experimental and the rational, much may be hoped."

Francis Bacon

Plato versus Thrasymachus

'Plato thinks he can prove that his ideal Republic is good; a democrat who accepts the objectivity of ethics may think that he can prove the Republic bad; but any one who agrees with Thrasymachus [that justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger] will say: "There is no question of proving or disproving; the only question is whether you like the kind of State that Plato desires. If you do, it is good for you; if you do not, it is bad for you. If many do and many do not, the decision cannot be made by reason, but only by force, actual or concealed."'

Bertrand Russell

Insouciance

"A dog will bark more loudly and bite more readily when people are afraid of him than when they treat him with contempt, and the human herd has something of this same characteristic."

Bertrand Russell

Escape I

"Our doings are not so important as we naturally suppose; our successes and failures do not after all matter very much. Even great sorrows can be survived; troubles which seem as if they must put an end to happiness for life fade with the lapse of time until it becomes almost impossible to remember their poignancy. But over and above these self-centred considerations is the fact that one's ego is no very large part of the world. The man who can centre his thoughts and hopes upon something transcending self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life which is impossible to the pure egoist."

Bertrand Russell

If rivers were wise, they'd stay still

"The habit of looking to the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one. There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts. Life is not to be conceived on the analogy of a melodrama in which the hero and heroine go through incredible misfortunes for which they are compensated by a happy ending."

Bertrand Russell

Hyper-imagination

What's worse than having the difficulty to sleep is the torture of having to be conscious.

Box' of shaded memories #11

When nothing mattered.

Box' of shaded memories #10

Time is a lie,
Words and so are many other things.

People die,
And die again and again.

So what,
People survive on whatever and ever.

Heaven will shake a little,
Then the world will move on like it always has.

Thereafter memories hold,
Very unnecessarily.

The truth is that pain is nothing,
That’s when the converse is also true.

We return to the same start and end,
All the time.

But time is a lie,
Words and so are many other things.

Box' of Shaded Memories #9

That blackened core.

Box' of Shaded Memories #8

Reflections are overrated.

Box' of Shaded Memories #7

Jurong West and Bamboo Poles.

Formal Education is Over-rated

"And if possible, die with a smile...you're too young to look cool carrying your grief around."

-Ichigo's father to Ichigo, Episode 9, Bleach.

Poker 1 Sociology 0

I am only blogging because

1) I cannot log into facebook poker.
2) My disc-drive is throwing tantrums and I cannot watch stuff my friends burned for me.
3) My downloads are far from complete.
4) I can't sleep, again.

The combination of reasons has compelled me to comment on the own goal sociology scored with its bureaucratic arpasia (no, it is not a real word). You want a thesis proposal, here's some potential thesis topics:

1) Gambling Hub: A hypothetical perspective on the hypothetical effects of the Integrated Resort that is not there yet.

2) Social life in Singapore: so-so food and so-so shopping and so-so life.

3) The Singaporean Identity: Uniquely similar to everybody else.

4) More than just a comma: A sociological perspective on the use of colons.

5) Methodology in Sociology: to what end and through what means, whatever that means.

6) Sociology: whatever that means.

Box' of Shaded Memories #6

When I feel threathened, I try to transform into an underwater mangosteen - for disguise.

The man who sold the world

I laughed and shook his hand
And made my way back home
I searched for form and land
For years and years I roamed
I gazed a gazeless stare
At all the millions here
I must have died along
A long, long time ago.

-David Bowie

Box' of Shaded Memories #5

Vietnam-Cambodia-Thailand backpacking trip in 2005 with Sam and Fish. As it turned out, we were the animals in the zoo - not them. And we danced, day after day, like caged circus monkeys for bananas - for them. So who's laughing now?

What can I say ... you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both.

Cool and ridiculous humour

Colfax point.
Pimps and hoes,
And tricks in rows.
Women walk the streets,
With corns on their feets.
Broken dreams,
And no ice-cream.

- Narrator, Southpark, season 09, episode 07.

Box' of Shaded Memories #4

Shortly before I left for HK, I met up with Mol and tried to fit the background onto her head. There were perhaps also things I wanted to fit into her head.

Box' of Shaded Memories #3

That damn elephant sure was heavy.

Box' of Shaded Memories #2

black sand. so much like you. whose reflection was it? dark clouds. so much like me. whose fortune were we talking about?

Box' of Shaded Memories #1

In my early Hong Kong days, K brought me to a deserted place far into the new territories, a place far away from the city, far away from most people's conception of Hong Kong. The landscape was vast, undeveloped and crude. I was privileged enough to see the other side of Hong Kong early on when most of the other international students were busy shopping and getting drunk. The serene, rustic atmosphere of the place gave me a warm feeling absent from the city's dark and crowded winter evenings. Freedom must feel something like that.

Hindsight is 19/90's

Back in the 90's, music was great, things were simple and style had an attitude. I wish I was a young adult in the 90's, it would have been pretty cool. What happened? I am turning 24, I look around me and can't help but feel a little shortchanged by the lack of substance. Yes, I suppose there are more intelligent people around these days which, of course, is a good thing. But there aren't many people with, how to say, content of character?

More Fan-art

Three beautiful pieces by three beautiful people.

I have to do the twist again

Five minutes after I went back to my management lecture notes. My entire body shook, for a moment I thought my soul was being raptured.

In the lecture notes' explanation of Pavlov's classical conditioning:

- Pavlov's dog
- meat => salvation
- bell ring => meat
- bell ring => salvation





Oh my dog.

I twist from studying

Here is some Fan-art. Heh.

and here is something totally unrelated.

My annoyance level was steadily rising as I was reading rather irksome stuff for my management module when I came across this:

"the opposite of satisfaction is not dissatisfaction, but rather no satisfaction. The opposite of dissatisfaction is not satisfaction but no dissatisfaction (tongue twister?)"

First, it is dumbness trying to sound intelligent. Second, it is not a tongue twister because it is dead easy to say it. But nevertheless it twisted my entire face when I saw it. Third my amgydala (the rage central of the brain, I have been dying to use this word since I learnt it, the other being pygmalion) went into overdrive.


Ok however true this post is, I just wanted to use the word amygdala. Now that I did, uh, think i will just.... yah....bye.

I think I should try to stop entertaining myself.

This is just to prevent my viewership of five people from dropping to zero

A photo from way back. Taken in a friend's house with his axes. I no longer keep in contact with him. I am losing friends.

Stale

I am losing interest in music, soccer and academic pursuits, leaving me with just the sole and measly interest from my bank account. What is it, 0.015? The feeling of malaise around me has become so thick, I can create malaise broth when I sweat. I reckon it will taste somethin like mutton coated with a layer of red bean paste. The point is, I ploug through the day exerting maximum effort without doing anything at all. Yes I am brilliant in a very perverse way. Maybe this feeling stems from me not having any desire for whatsoever, whatever, ever, er. I feel like a tree, alive but bereft of emotions. Perhaps, I should just plant myself beside the fountain near my estate. I'll make the fountain look good. Nay, the fountain will make me look good. Okay, we complement each other. I will make a good tree, I think.

Gabe

I have decided to stop playing my beautifully over-rated, red sunburst Gibson studio guitar, Geneve. Not that I really spent a lot of time playing on it anyway. There is a minor malfunction on Geneve where the strings cannot make clean contact with the upper-frets. This is of course a technical excuse. If anything, I never had much of a, for the lack of a better word, relationship with Geneve. Yes, it produces a very good sound and has a nice feel when playing it, as expected from a gibson. Yet, I never really got round to playing it with much satisfaction. After a random episode of wanting change, I decided to pick up the Hofner guitar, Gabe, that sat around neglected and collecting dust for, well, most of its existence. It is unusually heavy and difficult to play near the upper-frets because the bridge is a little too high. It doesn't look very impressive either, spotting a big body and rather ordinary workmanship. But it is black. It is black. It is black and it ties in with a lot of the things I own. Hopefully, this will spark a bit of vigour when I do actually choose to plug it in, which is rare these days. All the best.

Black afternoons and day-time nightmares

My insomnia is killing me. I cannot sleep when I want to even if I am tired. It leaves me very dazed in school and makes concentrating in class extremely tedious. When I do actually get some sleep, usually in the late afternoon, I get very warped dreams of somebody repeatedly singing "anybody can can" (WTF?) or struggling to delete something from somebody's handphone before the person wakes up. It is very worrying you know. I can't even 'do nothing' these days. I reckon I will need to resort to drastic methods soon, like counting draculas in multiples of seven or doing a few (yes, a few) push-ups before I go to sleep.

In the december air, is a four letter word.

About once a month, someone will ask me, directly or indirectly, why I am not attached. I then seriously (so it seems) ponder over it for 2 seconds then say: "I dunno."

Several minutes later, I'll ask myself the same question: "eh, why ar?". I then seriously (more seriously) ponder over it for 2 seconds then tell myself: "How I know."

Sometimes, before I sleep the question will resurface: "eh, why not (insert name)?". I then seriously (even more seriously) ponder over it for 2 seconds then come to a unsatisfying conclusion: "maybe someday la."

So I guess the problem is me?

Typical conversations with Mom

1) After I finished my meal.

'Nice or not?'
/dramatically 'very very nice'
'i should have gave birth to an egg instead of you'



2) Mom puts a cup of liquid on my table.

'what is this?' (in chinese)
'Shit' (in hokkein)
/gives a tired bemused face 'huh?'
'urine water' (in cantonese)

Compose

Lately, I have been a little bothered. A string of memories left me shaken and gasping for air. I found it hard to recompose myself with these full-blown cognitive reenactments constantly intercepting my studying. I keep tryng to hold on to bits of my concentration but this stupid mind just cannot behave itself. Such a naughty mind! When I move from Jurong, it can stay here with it's new family. I am going to go get a new mind. In any case, I still have to rely on this stupid mind for my exams.

Show your stupid worth, stupid mind!

Seering Hindsight

And when I die, He will tell me: 'You should've found a crime that fitted your punishment.'

Why the material conditonal?

It is difficult for the material conditional to be false, a material conditional can only be false when both the antecedent is true and the consequent is false. The material conditional is the minimum that one means, and it is the minimum that one should interpret. It stems from the fact that there are no causal connections between 'if' and 'then' in the material conditional. Likewise, in this space, there are no connections between anything and anything. Yet, it is logical.


Oh dont mind me, it is just a vain justification for a random blog title.

The Accidental Blown Job

i accidentally deleted everything.

tommy: what the fuck man. you moron.

I guess it's time to start on a new slate then.

tommy: slate your backside la.