Moderation

Apologies for the lack of update. I was busy enjoying my break, and before that busy trying to hand in the assignments in time.

Anyway, recently stuff has been...... interesting. I read an article about the brain drain issue, where people take extreme stands (such as saying people are ingrates, the country is shit etc). I have also read an article recently that says the Americans are removing the contents in their education textbooks that 'Intelligent Design' is wrong. In case you're not aware of this, the debate between 'Intelligent Design' (i.e. God created you as you are) vs the evolution theory has been raging on for ages. And they have ruled that Darwin is right, God did not create you.

Now I realize there are a lot of details left out from these two issues from that paragraph, and I'm assuming you know them.

But look, both articles I read point at the same thing. Why are we taking extreme stands everytime? In the first article about brain drain, the author wrote that why focus on people who are out of the country and no effort is made to keep people in? In our globalized world, knowledge passes around without any visible boundaries. Much less your customs boundaries. In the second article, the author (my head of department no less) argues that it is perverse to think that we are omitting God from the credits for our existence.

The main point here being, we like to think in straight lines. Our logic works like a one way street (most of the time). 1+1=2, but 2 is not necessarily from 1+1 alone.

In the first article, I fully agree with the author. Why harp about people who have decided to move, and ignore people who are still with you? In the second, why can't we believe that God created the Universe and let it progress, which subsequently led to us? In the argument for existential purpose why must be stick with 'God created us for' and 'Genes have no other purpose other than to reproduce and maintain existence'?

I'm sure we're all extremists in some fields. We just won't admit it, because we believe our logic is flawless. Well surprise, the world doesn't make sense most of the time.

And I can go on about laws of thermodynamics and stuff, but those are exciting only to me. (If it tickles you, the laws of thermodynamics are about heat and work mostly. It can be summarized as 'You can't win, you can only break even at best, and you can't get out of the game').

Why does the world not make sense? My thoughts are that its not the world. Its our perception. We are unable to make sense of the world, hence it does not appear to make sense. If it felt weird, think about it this way. Whoever created the Universe knows exactly what laws govern what and why. We don't. Why can't we ever achieve the speed of light. Why time moves in a linear fashion (or does it?).

It is exactly this stand of mine that I find people who believe they understand God to be fallacious. Particularly some bunch of terrorists who say their God demands your life.

We are primitive at best. I think most of our ways of thinking require improvement, including mine (which ironically renders what I just wrote moot)

What's Your Philosophy?

It's hard juggling two blogs. Kind of like how people have 2 wives, or lead double lives.

I've never had more than one boyfriend at any one time, so this takes a little getting used to.

It's all about time management.




But i've been spending all my free time playing futsal these days. I have time for neither blog.

So in the end i'm not unlike that hypothetical man with two wives.

Today i am going to talk about something i stumbled upon on Facebook. Because i am just so whimsical that way.



Did you know there's a little section in your Facebook profile called Philosophy? There's a column where you get to tell the world "People who inspire you," I don't know what's so philosophical about that.

Maybe it's because you have to ponder about what gives you inspiration and whatnot.

But being the curious bird that i am, i typed in random alphabets to see who are the most inspirational people on Facebook. By popularity.




That new Adam Sandler movie was hilarious. But seriously?
And All my life I've been good. But now ohhhhhhhh I'm thinking what the hell?!


What the hell!?

Plus all i can remember about Ashley Tisdale is that she did some poultry throat exercises in that monstrosity of a movie.




Lady Gaga as the first suggestion when you type L, and also when you type G.



If The Annoying Orange inspires you, you should see a doctor.





You must be kidding me. I thought that maybe someone generic like "Mom" would be one of the top inspirational people.

But i have officially lost hope for humanity.

New Blog, New Post

I have decided to post slightly more insightful stuff and hopefully appear intelligent to you readers out there. Just so there is no misunderstanding, I am a jerk who thinks he actually has an ounce of smarts. Serious.

I'll keep the lame stuff in my own blog, (because Aimee has administrative rights in this blog) which I hope I will be able to maintain.

Anyway, I had hoped the first post to be a good one, but I don't know how good this is. This is the best among the topics swimming around in my head at the moment.

So, ever had that feeling when walking amongst the throng of people who, each are rushing off and busy living their daily lives, and you feel insignificant? Its like, you have problems, and you know everyone out there has problems. But when you see the number of people out in the streets, all walking in the same direction, unsmiling, rushing off to work/toilet/lectures, its as though we are one large community of strangers. We rush to meet our friends, but we do not recognize the person who shares our streets. Globalization has done that, connect the distant and made the close distant at the same time.

I do get the feeling, in case you have not realized. All the time. I am guessing studying philosophy on my own has side effects (for example, I read my early posts in my regular blog, and I am amused at how shallow and stupid I was to the me now. Part of growing up I guess).

Just to clear things up, I am not an atheist. I believe in God, however I do not believe in the popularized mainstream God(s). If we cannot understand God, certainly religion will fail to explain things properly after the passing of the Prophets. Just to make it obvious, that was my opinion.

Anyway, back to the topic. Don't you feel that the subsequent feeling is a slight melancholy if you don't shake of that feeling of insignificance? I do, in fact I am melancholic most of the time. Side effects of existentialism.

But then, I had a thought. Because I am currently reading Richard Dawkin's 'The Selfish Gene' (I finished Thomas Friendman's 'Lexus and Olive Tree', which was entertaining and insightful), I guess that influenced the thought.

I was a sperm!

Alright no surprises, but look, before I was born, I was a sperm. Swimming around in Dad. Waiting for the great day when I will be sent off in the quest of (hopefully) eternal perpetuation of the species and genes that I carry. Believing that Dad as a married man would have stopped masturbating (I wouldn't know that anyway).

And racing against 3 billion competitors. You would think Amazing Race was intense.

Avoiding obstacles, germs, floating debris, alcohol, cupcakes burgers and clouds and whatnots. Finally in the uterus, which splits into two. I wonder who designed that. Must be a sadist.

So 50/50 chance of getting the right side (haha) of the womb, hoping to find Princess Egg (Ovum). If she is even there.

But cut the long story short, here I am writing this blog entry. As melancholic as I am, it is nonetheless amazing that I am here, pondering over my existence.

Edit: I just realized I did not go through all that to be frustrated about assignments now. It just doesn't sound right

On a side topic, the Kakapo is an amazing bird as well. It has great intelligence, and if my memory serves me right, these guys are amazingly horny. Before you kids out there take my words for your thesis and citing them happily, this is a faint recollection of what I read in the museum, so its highly credible.

Why do I remember this? Because during mating season, the male Kakapo will yell out for females to come over and say 'LETS HAVE SEXXXXXX!'. And guess what? He settles her in 5 seconds.

I'm not kidding, 5 seconds. Then he calls out for other females. But you know, they are poor endangered birds (I think).now. Efforts to get them to breed had been colorful. I remember documentaries saying the bird had fun with people's heads, the blanket, your leg, well virtually everything.

Funny thing is, when they (the people involved) wore a condom-hat (ridiculous as it sounds) to collect its sperm properly, it avoided them and humped the neighbors' heads. So they constructed a machine-female Kakapo and wheeled it in. It refused to play with the piece of... I'm guessing steel.

So there you have it, horny but smart. Exactly the type of bird with character, I must say!