I sometimes wonder at my inertia. Whenever I think of something I should be doing, I inevitably attempt to put it off. Why would this be so? Perhaps more pertinent is the question of whether I really feel I should do anything. The word 'should' is so presumptuous. Who defines what should or should not be? Society? Have I no purpose but to fulfil my role in society then? If I were in a different society, would I no longer be me, but somebody else? This other person is not me, but then I would have no existence. This other would be the only existence, but he cannot be, for I do exist now. But now is nothing. What if I am nothing more than an abstract construct, a thought exercise of what some version of myself, no, not a version of myself, but some creature who is the real me, except not me, might think would happen if a particular set of circumstances were to come about? After all, if characters can exist in a fiction, why then can fiction not be a reality?

Alright, that leads nowhere, I know, I've been there.

Personal Growth

I truly wonder at my own foolishness sometimes. It's clear that I'm stuck in a rut. I used to think that college would be all about personal growth, but the only directions I have grown in have been those which were already in progress, or those which I certainly do not desire to have any growth in. On the other hand, I have to consider that maybe I have gone as far as I want where I want to go, and any change from now on will not be my desire. Clearly, it is a touch narcissistic to claim that I am as well developed as I could want to be, but sometimes the only conclusions I can come to are the only conclusions I can come to.

If this is true, then what is the point of trying to achieve anything from now on? I find that I am very much stuck in my own conception of myself. I cannot bring myself to like authors I do not already like, unless they are very similar to those I already admire. I cannot like movies that do not fit a particular mould, which invariably shifts every time I watch a new movie, but cannot include others that do not at that point in time fit the mould. I cannot do things which I do not already do, for fear of failing, or simply not enjoying myself. No no, that is not true. More accurately, I cannot do things which do not fit my image of myself. In fact, that image is pretty rigid, and that might be a reason I find myself so profoundly boring. The rigidity is quite amazing. Most people are able to adjust slightly according to the circumstances. I am completely unable to. This is what bothers me. To a great extent, I have not really changed since before I can remember. Perhaps I am a touch less shy now, slightly more confident of my self-worth, at least externally. But I am essentially the same person. This is through the major period of change in my life. If I do not change through my teenage years, it seems unlikely that I will change in the foreseeable future. The implications of this are quite depressing. If I find myself boring now, and I do not change, how can I stand myself for the next forty or whatever number of years? Hmmm, quite a challenging prospect.

But can I then redefine myself if I wanted? The problem with this is that even if it is possible to change myself, which I believe it is, I would not want to, for as much as I am trapped within my conception of myself, my conception of myself is trapped within my conception of myself. It is self-perpetuating in the sense that I must fulfil my face to myself, to steal a term from Erving Goffman. I present an idea of Au Dazhou to myself, and it is then immutable. I must maintain the consistency of that idea of the person, or everything will collapse upon itself. When this happens, I cannot but hold myself rigid and unmoving within myself, and reconstruct the exact same idea once more, for it is the only mould I dare to conceive of. It is unthinkable to recreate myself completely. Perhaps this is because of my own ego. I believe in my own worth, and if I really do believe in my value as a person, then I cannot possibly change it, or I will be admitting to myself that I am not worth all that much after all, if I can be discarded so easily.

Hmmm, depressing. Enough then.

Pink

Ok, bloggin on request again. I think I'm a sucker for this kind of thing. Well, at least it feeds my ego a bit.

So, pink eh? Hate the singer. Nothing to do with the songs, which are horrendous by the way, but no worse than, say, Britney Spears'. Note that Miss Spears gets my vote of approval for being ridiculously hot and willing to wear as little as is necessary to put on a good concert. Pink, on the other hand, is also willing to wear as little as she wants. But she's really quite disgusting. Short, ugly, terrible figure, gimme a break. Honestly, she's like some sort of dwarf who was captured and used in some sort of evil genetic experiment, then shot and killed by the scientists who created her because she was too ugly for words, but resurrected by Dr Frankenstein, who had gone blind beforehand, so he didn't realise how ugly she was, but might have raised her from the dead anyway, since the word 'monster' might have been created for her, but he probably wouldn't have, really, because no one can look upon that face and avoid throwing up instinctively, which would have really screwed up his delicate machinery, which might explain why she turned out like she did.

Ok, now that we have established a brief description of Pink, let us move on to pink, the colour. I cannot bear the thought of dwelling on Pink too much longer. Urgh. Ok, pink the colour. It seems to be terribly popular among the female population, for some reason. I have nothing against the colour, really, but I don't see why it is particularly popular. I can see that it's soft and fluffy, but so is, I don't know, baby blue. Ok, I don't like baby blue, but that's a personal thing. Pink is a general preference for a large enough swath of the female population that it is certainly statistically significant. Please explain to me why there is this craving for the colour. When I walk into the Burberry's boutique and hang a left into the women's section, I can hardly see for the sweetness of the pink all around me. Ouch, I just read the last few sentences, and the capital 'P' in pink reminds me of that singer again. Argh! The horror!

Come to think of it, why do we have preferences anyway? They make no sense. There's no evolutionary value in preferring something over another. In fact, it may be detrimental to survival. Choosing one thing over another purely because of preferences and not because of any practical value can only hurt the practical utility derived.

Still, if we don't have preferences, everything would be practical. In fact, practicality would be a preference in and of itself. It would be horribly boring actually. Sigh, I think I should leave this to some other time. I'm a bit tired now.

Choose

Hmmm, it's quite remarkable how much clarity the downslide of alcohol gives you. The high is nothing but silliness, enjoyable silliness, to be sure, but nothing serious or really useful. When you force yourself to stop drinking, and eventually slide into the melancholic mood that must accompany this state of recovery from alcholic euphoria, there can sometimes be found the greatest insights into yourself. Maybe it is because the inhibitions are still down, but the the physical self is still. Then you can make a far fuller and clearer examination of your own mind.

It is at one such moment last night that I came to a conclusion about myself. I had a sore throat, and at one point in the middle of a party, I stopped drinking long enough to feel the pain of the abused throat, so I stopped altogether. At this point, I naturally started to become more and more quiet and still. So I retreated to a side room and looked out the window for a couple of hours. At this point, I was able to look at myself carefully, both figuratively and literally, for the reflection was clear in the window. And things became clearer and clearer, the confusion that has been clouding my mind was swept away, and I came to know something about myself. No, that would be inaccurate. I knew it all along, but I had denied it. In fact, I am not so certain I did not know it consciously. In any case, this was the first time I allowed it to come to the fore of my mind, and the first time I attempted to sort it out and confront the issue instead of brushing it aside.

So when I faced the issue and thought it through, I realised that I could not solve it as simply as I do most things in life. This was something that had a resolution that could only be truly satisfactory if someone else took up the issue as well. The problem here is that I may not be willing to force action. The alternative would be to solve the issue by detaching myself from it. Disavowing any connection and severing any links. Could this be the solution? For if I allowed things to drag on, the only loser would be myself. I truly do not see any way I could really obtain a profit from it, for there is little profit to be had. The costs thus far have been grave, but they are already sunk. Is it time to cut losses and run? If it is, maybe I should do so as quickly as possible. Or should I make an attempt to gamble and try for a profit? No, the investment is essentially lost, I cannot win it now.

I obviously cannot let things lie, as the losses will become greater and greater. Perhaps I should just cut and run now. It seems as good a time as any other, and the losses will be minimised. Yes, I think that is the way for me now. Very well, that is the path I choose.

Ingrate

Hmmm, haven't been doing anything here, but I have been waxing lyrical in other arenas. Maybe I should just copy and paste it here, save myself the effort. Nah, that just seems lazy. But I am lazy. In fact, here's a snippet of something I wrote as a favour for a friend, who subsequently failed to show the slightest hint of gratitude. It's a walkthrough of a script for a cultural show. I think it's good, but apparently these people have bad taste. Oh well, whatever.

The story is an adaptation of the tale of Dong Zhuo and Lu Bu from the Three Kingdoms period. The main protagonists are the Emperor, his general and adopted son, and Diao Chan, the female lead.

We begin with a battle between the Imperial forces, led by the general, and a peasant army. The Imperial forces are outnumbered by the peasants, but even as the general is eventually isolated, he wins the day by individual force of arms and presence.

Back in the palace, the Emperor congratulates the general on yet another job well done, bestows honors, land etc on the general, but is then quick to turn to his dancing girls and whatever other debauchery is convenient to show onstage. The various court officials stand to the side and observe the Emperor in some distaste. We split into three groups here; the Emperor, the general and the dancers, a group of older courtiers, and the Crown Prince and some followers. We shift from the dancers to the courtiers, who are discussing the excesses of the Emperor, mentioning the unwillingness to focus on serious matters, preferring instead to spend his days in pursuit of pleasure. Shift back to dancers. Shift to prince who is worried about the violent methods used to suppress the revolts instigated by the extreme taxation. He thinks the Emperor should lower taxes and spend more on the public as opposed to simply using the general to quash rebellion violently. Shift back to Emperor. Emperor again congratulates the general and invites him to partake in the merriment, which he gladly does, betraying a hint of the lusty, self-involved fellow he is. Emperor and general are happily drinking and laughing as we shift back to the prince. The prince is also worried about the general becoming too high in the Emperor’s favor, and is beginning to wonder if his own position in the succession is secure, as the Emperor is displeased with him for constantly nagging him to change policies. Shift to the courtiers, who come to an agreement to try to eliminate the Emperor and install the prince on the throne. But they are worried about the general, who has sufficient power to wrest the throne from the prince if the Emperor were gotten rid of. So they decide to create conflict between the Emperor and the general in order to weaken both and then eliminate the winner. The scene comes together as the Emperor orders new dancers to come in. Finish the dance and fade out to the Emperor and the general laughing and enjoying themselves.

The female protagonist is taking a stroll with her maids as her father, the senior courtier from the previous scene, enters. The courtier dismisses the maids and speaks to his daughter. He starts telling Diao Chan the story of how the Emperor is so terrible and extravagant. He oppresses the people and doesn’t pay any attention to official matters, leaving the prince to settle all the administrative work. Worst of all, the Emperor doesn’t give his senior officials (meaning himself) any respect. Clearly there is a need for a new Emperor. Diao Chan is pretty worried about this, pointing out that casual talk like that is liable to get him and his entire family (including herself) executed. The courtier then asks if she is willing to sacrifice herself for the good of the country. Diao Chan is naturally pretty suspicious, and asks him to clarify. The courtier says he has a plan to get rid of the Emperor and install a new ruler, but it requires a great sacrifice of her. She is intrigued by the possibility of making history and asks for details. We fade away as the courtier begins to outline his plan.

We start with a dance which includes Diao Chan as the lead. After the dance concludes, the courtier presents Diao Chan as his daughter, who he offers to the Emperor as a concubine. The Emperor, the lecher that he is, is happy to accept. Diao Chan greets the Emperor, the prince and the general. All present are quite enamored of her except for the general, who is unimpressed, being the tough military man that he is. The Emperor dismisses the others and begins to enjoy himself with Diao Chan.

The next scene is in a garden, where the general is taking a walk, when he runs into Diao Chan, who is apparently practicing a dance. Diao Chan asks him if he dislikes her. He admits that he does not particularly dislike her, and welcomes her to the palace. They talk for a while, Diao Chan clearly playing the part of a lost little girl who is overwhelmed by the palace. Eventually, she asks him to watch her practice a dance for the Emperor, saying she is worried that she is not doing it well. He agrees, and she begins a solo, unaccompanied dance. He is quite enraptured, and after she is finished, begins to leave, when she starts to cry and act pitiful when she thinks he doesn’t like the dance. He comforts her and reassures her that the dance is wonderful, and they end up kissing as the lights fade.

The Emperor is fawning over Diao Chan in court as the general is summoned. The Emperor takes a moment to order the general to go quash another rebellion. The general barely hears him as he is glaring at Diao Chan as she looks sheepish when the Emperor is addressing the general. The prince cuts in and argues that they should negotiate with the rebels instead. The Emperor gets upset and declares that he has no need to negotiate because he is the ruler, and the peasants should pay for him to do whatever he wants. After some arguing, the general interrupts them and says that he will take care of the rebels easily, then walks offstage.

The Emperor is shown with Diao Chan in the background as a battle plays out in the foreground. The general is obviously angry and taking it out on the rebels, abusing the enemy soldiers badly and being pretty brutal.

We return to a lion dance for the opening of a structure for the Emperor’s favourite concubine, Diao Chan. The Emperor is drawn away to chase some other concubines. The general takes the opportunity to speak to Diao Chan. After some quiet argument over meeting, they arrange to meet later. The Emperor returns and grabs the girl, while the general stands there looking angry. The prince steps in and advises the general to cool down and not let his lust make him do anything silly. He attempts to engage the general in a discussion about the rebellion just recently suppressed. Thinking that he is being criticized for his methods, the general becomes angry and snarls at the prince that unlike some soft noblemen, he was in the field and would do what was necessary. The Emperor walks back and is boasting to everybody that the general is the finest fighter in the land and was his man. To prove his point, he tells the general to demonstrate his prowess. The general is quite aghast, but has no choice but to comply. He proceeds to beat up a bunch of soldiers barehanded and becomes so worked up that he’s slapping the beaten soldiers around pretty cruelly. Amidst this scene of the Emperor delighting in the general’s prowess, the prince and courtiers quite shocked at the cruelty, and the general visibly humiliated and furious, but holding it in, the scene ends.

The general is pacing the stage impatiently as Diao Chan enters, still adjusting her clothes. She cozies up to him a bit, but he becomes impatient and tells her that he is not satisfied with such little interaction. She tries to pacify him, but he is still upset and begins to complain about the way the Emperor made him perform for the court. She is sympathetic and starts to subtly point out the possibility of doing violence to the Emperor. He is initially resistant to the idea, but as she begins to talk about how the Emperor is so possessive of her and how boorish he is, he starts to become angrier. Eventually, he storms out offstage and the scene ends.

The courtier is talking to the prince as the general strides past. The courtier hails him and talks about how the Emperor doesn’t respect those who are his loyal subjects. The general is upset and brushes him off. Scene ends.

The Emperor summons the general and asks him to go on yet another military expedition. The general is quite exasperated and complains that he is asked to do everything. The prince intervenes and asks the Emperor to negotiate. This time, the Emperor is quite at a loss, since his prized general is unwilling to aid him. Eventually he gives in and says he will make a concession this one time. He even asks the courtier to take care of the negotiations. The general reluctantly apologizes and offers to go anyway, but the prince cuts him off and leaves him aside as they discuss the impending negotiations.

The general meets Diao Chan, but she is more reserved. She says the Emperor is becoming suspicious, and they should not meet anymore. This upsets him, and they begin arguing. Eventually he becomes enraged and kills her out of hand. When the guards and the Emperor show up to investigate the noisy altercation, the general claims that she had tried to instigate her to assassinate the Emperor, so he killed her for treason.

Final scene, the Emperor is in court, with everybody around, when a messenger tries to stab the Emperor, but the general stops him and is holding him down, the dagger in the other hand. The Emperor dismisses everybody else except for the general and proceeds to interrogate the assassin. The fellow turns out to be a peasant who was disgruntled by the negotiations of the previous rebellion. The Emperor is incensed and berates the general for refusing to suppress the rebellion by force. At this point, the general snaps, tosses the dagger in front of the assassin, then releases him, standing back. The assassin is surprised and looks at the general for a moment, but the general stand motionless. So the assassin grabs the dagger and stabs the panicking Emperor. The rest of the court rushes in and are shocked that the Emperor is dead. The general swiftly apprehends the assassin and strikes him extremely hard when he tries to say something. He then orders the assassin taken out to be executed. The prince tries to take charge, but the general stops him cold, and claims that the prince had been behind the assassin. The prince is surprised and tries to defend himself, but the soldiers listen to the general and arrest the prince. When the courtier tries to intervene on behalf of the prince, the general loses his temper and declares all the prince’s allies to be guilty of treason as well. So the soldiers drag out the prince, the courtier and a bunch of other officials. The Imperial physician shows up and tries to examine the Emperor but is ordered out of the room. Instead the general tells the soldiers to take the body out and bury it immediately. The general then picks up the crown where it had fallen to the ground and stares at it for a moment, then slowly and deliberately sits down on the throne.

And we end.

Not bad, I think. Took me like an hour to bang that out. Those morons complained that it was too complicated, that there shouldn't be an Emperor in it. All I can say is, wtf? If you're scared of complex plots, go read Harry Potter, don't ask me to come up with something. I can't help it if I try to make things interesting and engaging, can I? Well, maybe I can, but I certainly don't want to.

Ugh, not in the best shape of my life, I'll be back eventually.

Lies lies lies

Sometimes I wonder whether the truth is all that important. Lies are these evil things that become an indictment of the character of the person telling them. That's the common perception anyway, but what happens when the lie is justified? Is there any way to readjust morality to allow for it?

Heard of this German movie, I forget the name, but it was about this guy whose mother had been in a coma when the Berlin Wall fell, so she didn't know that East Germany was no longer communist. So he tries to maintain the illusion that things are as they were, in order to avoid upsetting his ill mother. As events progress, the web of lies becomes ever larger. Eventually, things fall apart, inevitably. In such cases, was it immoral for the son to have constructed the falsehoods to protect his mother? Should he simply have told her the truth and risked damaging her health?

Ah, things become complicated when you set aside simple morality and look at motivation. We all live in a web of lies we weave about ourselves. If we see someone we dislike, we generally attempt to be polite, hiding your distaste. There is a constant denial of the most primal desires, such as the sexual drives or disinclinations towards work. Such are all inaccurate representations of the truth of yourself. But can anyone condemn such actions? After all, if we told everybody exactly what we thought of them, society would dissolve into a collection of bickering, acrimonious individuals. The greater good comes to take precedence over personal desires. The only we can do this is by pegging personal gain to social gain. Which is mostly the case. You might be an emotionally more satisfied person if you screamed at your superior for his incompetence, but you would be a less employed individual.

Personally, I think lies are really completely acceptable. The truth is such a subjective thing that it really doesn't matter. It's almost impossible to find two completely concurring opinions on any single fact. In that case, why don't we just pretend to adjust our own thinking to move towards a common consensus that is tolerable for all parties involved. I adopt the philosophy of the lowest upper bound of tolerance. There is a reserve level for any situation, beyond which things cannot be allowed to progress. The thing is to find the lowest upper bound for every other individual in the interaction, and work within that to find a position which is within the bounds for both. This naturally requires a great deal of negotiation, but negotiation is really nothing more than the layering of falsehoods on top of the truth of your opinion. Each party pretends that he or she is happy to move that bit more, and that the final resolution is satisfactory. That is pretty unlikely. The best most can hope for in the result is mutual tolerance. If not, then the positions were similar in the first place, so there would have been no real need for negotiation.

Sigh, it's a saturday afternoon, and I should have better things to do than type here.

Twisting in

Ok, I had a request a while back on a particular topic, but I cannot remember what it was, and I cannot be bothered to find out what it was, so I'm just going to ramble randomly now.

Been spending a great deal of time in the library recently, nothing like the time I started this weblog thing, but more than since then. Clearly, the lack of effort in the past two months or so has caught up to me. Well, things can't be that bad, except for the fact that my levels of productivity have attained new lows. When I wonder why, the only thing that springs to mind is that my enthusiasm for school has faded completely.

I can hear the cries of disbelief now. Dazhou, enthusiasm for school? Oxymoron. I cannot ever have been happy to work and go to school, can I?

Well, the truth is that once upon a time, I was looking forward to school. This was when I was in the army. Back then, I thought university would be fun, cool, interesting. I thought studying in the States would be a real learning experience. I wanted to discover more about myself and the world around me. As you can tell, this state of naivete was brought on by a state of intense boredom. The army, especially for NSFs, or National Service Fulltime kids, is the single most boring occupation in the world. Maybe excepting Singapore security guards. But at least those guys got to ogle skimpily clad teenage girls in the condominiums. In the army, there are essentially no girls. The only females are invariably superior in rank to you, and the only emotion engendered by their appearance is resentment and irritation at their refusal to bow to the authority of the knowledge and expertise of bored NSFs. Which is odd, because these are the smartest people in the army. Regulars are generally not too bright, and the smart ones are not hanging about the units rotting with bored NSFs. Those people are out becoming generals and the like. So at the operational level, a few morons command a bunch of bored kids, some of whom are the best and brightest in the country.

You can imagine the intense boredom this can create in the breast of one such as myself. I freely admit that I am extremely derisive of those people who are unable to muster, sustain and articulate a single coherent thought in their lives. I suppose that will earn me some flak, but hey, if you insist on respecting people who demand it, but are eminently incapable of earning a jot of it, that's your business, not mine. Just as people have a right to be stupid, I have a right to pour scorn on them. Unfortunately, I discovered that those in charge of me in the army belonged to precisely such an ilk. I shall not delve into details here. Suffice it to say that I had a devil of a time pretending to be extremely stupid, so that the work assigned to me, which I could complete in approximately one hundredth of the time thought necessary for it, would not be increased. Unfortunately, I did not succeed at this completely, and I was frequently asked to perform tasks beyond my original and intended level. Fortunately, I was lazy and irresponsible enough such that these tasks were rarely done promptly or satisfactorily, and this never spread too far.

Now, note that this attitude does not extend to every aspect of my life. It is only in this period of my life that I was completely unmotivated to be even slightly competent at anything asked of me. This was because there was no system of reward for competence, nor punishment for incompetence. Well, there was some punishment for incompetence, but the level of failure required here, defined by the level of the supervisors themselves, is astoundingly high. So I had no reason to be good at what was asked of me, and no reason to fear being bad at it.

So I was spectacularly bored. This was a period when my mental activity slowed to the pace of a rock. I basically went into suspended animation, for the brain, for two and a half years. The boredom drove me to think that any change would be better. University sounded appealing, simply for it's being at the end of the ordeal of military service. Also, the prospect of interacting with girls who were not empty-headed bimbos, as the crowd seemed to be in my NS social circle, sounded tremendously good. Of course, I have realised that this is clearly a shallow and meaningless goal. Especially when I realised the quality of girls in my school does not match up to my personal tastes. Not an absolute level, mind, but nobody particularly tuned to my frequency at least.

Besides, the thought of enjoying myself away from my parents sounded good. Unfortunately, it seems I was misinformed as to the funkiness of Chicago, as it is most definitely not nearly as interesting as Singapore. Which is saying something. Well, alright, maybe it's just the food. Still, food is important. Good food makes the day a little brighter, the moon a little rounder, company a little better, the earth spin a little faster. Without good food, life becomes a touch sad and lonely. I won't even go into family and friends here, as it should be fairly obvious.

As I spend more time here, school becomes less appealing, the States less welcoming, life less interesting. I have come to depend on others for entertainment and support after realising I have little within me to hold myself up after years of mental limbo. I am a tremendously boring fellow, at least to myself. There is nothing deep below. All there is is a knot of energy and intelligence, but without any substance or personality to feed upon, so it simply twists in upon itself, seeking something, anything, but finding nothing after all. The only remedy is to find sustenance externally.

Ok, I'm tired now, so I will elaborate on the specifics some other time. Stay tuned.

Insincerity

Sometimes people don't quite seem to get me. They complain that I treat different people in radically different ways, I behave differently, I speak in a different tone, I act in completely different ways. Well, the only answer to that is it's pretty obvious why.

Every person behaves in a particular and different way when interacting with different people. It's a fact of life. As Goffman would say, we take a different line and construct a different face for every individual social interaction. The problem then is to maintain internal consistency. Ok, tossing social theory aside, doesn't this ring true? You behave differently with your parents as compared to your friends, and a further differentiation as compared to your work colleagues, or your romantic partner, or some random kid on the street. And so on, you get the idea. It's a continual assessment by the self to make the appropriate adjustment for each interaction. Nothing profound or complicated there.

Some people will of course protest that this smacks of insincerity and hypocrisy. Hey, guess what? That's true. If you're talking about hypocrisy as the failure to express your particular individual personality without any influence or flavouring by external considerations of social, financial, whatever implications, then it is evident that practically every person is a hypocrite. Before getting all worked up about being insulted, let me clarify.

It is virtually impossible to be completely genuine at any time. There will always be something motivating you. So long as there is something you want to get out of an interaction, then you will adjust the persona you are presenting to allow you to take the actions that will get you what you want. Note that the definition of motivation can be very broad here. There is of course financial motivation, for example a car salesman who acts friendly and interested in order to make a sale. There might be social motivations, such as a politician who presents a particular face that has nothing to do who he actually is. Then there are a broad range of minor things that every person has, whether it be simply an enjoyable time with your friends, or keeping your parents happy so they will support you through college. Then there are the automatic impulse controls conditioned into you by society. Say you feel like punching a guy out for some reason. Most of the time, you will not do that, because you believe it to be wrong and dangerous for yourself. That is already an act of hypocrisy. You feel like doing it, you want to do it, but you do not because of external motivations. Your personal desires are suppressed. You are not presenting the true you. Same thing for drives like sexual desires or laziness or any number of other things.

If you disagree because you think that being called a hypocrite is offensive, then you're trapped in a socially constructed concept of pride. Hypocrite.

Ups and downs

Alright, alright, here we go. Ups and downs, eh? Yet another post on request, I cannot believe it. I promised not to go completely off-tangent this time, so bear with me.

Everybody goes through moments of extreme confidence and buoyancy, and moments of depression or melancholia. And no, don't start quibbling about definitions here. There are times when everything about the world seems right. Your friends are fascinating and nice, your work or studies are zipping along and seem interesting, the weather is lovely and perfect for whatever it is you happen to be planning. Life is good. It is easy to enjoy yourself and get things right.

Then there are the times when things don't seem quite so perfect. The smallest things become the largest issues. What is usually regarded as simple and uncomplicated suddenly becomes massively difficult. You lack energy, zest, enthusiasm. The things that delight you usually now become pointless and exhausting. Nothing is worth it anymore.

Personally, I seem to spend a lot more time in the down zone than the up one. Perhaps it is because of my more suspicious inclinations. When things seem too good to be true, I generally assume that they are. If I'm feeling confident about something, I instantly decide that there definitely will be a mistake, whether it be a systematic or a careless one. As a result, even when things are going my way, I force myself down, to look at things from a controlled and objective standpoint. It seems to be the only way in which I can operate effectively. From my experience in life, shallow as it may be at present, when you feel like you're on top of the world, you tend to do things less meticulously and capably, assuming that you are doing it right despite your refusal to believe in the possibility of an error. This is clearly not acceptable. It is part of the reason I view things in a more cynical light than many people. Not because I'm a depressed sort, but because I do not let myself get carried away. Continual assessment is the name of the game, not flashes of brilliance.

Hmmm, a sports analogy just occurred to me. When I watch Formula One, people constantly complain about how Michael Schumacher wins everything, then rave about how, say, Kimi Raikkonen or Fernando Alonso have some moments of sheer brilliance. Well, I'm a fan of Schumacher. I think driving perfect Grand Prixs consistently is harder and more admirable than driving brilliant races occasionally. The point is to maintain concentration always and never lose control of oneself. Part of my own approach to life. Ideally, I would like to maintain perfect control over myself. Much of the time, I am able to do it. Pretty much everything I do is calculated and decided upon. Spontaneity is not within my scope in that sense, though it may seem to be. Even when I make a seemingly spontaneous and poorly thought through decision, it rarely is. I generally will have considered it very carefully and will be able to give reasons, results, and possible repercussions if you bother to ask me. There's a reason why I turn out to be right so often, much as people hate to admit it. I just consider these things a bit faster than most people seem to.

But the downs I get into sometimes are a bit harder to snap out of at will. There are moments when I become completely depressed with how my life is going. I wonder what I'm really doing and whether there is any reason to do so. In fact, a couple of weeks back, I found myself so profoundly bored with everything that I sank into a bit of a funk. I simply lost interest in everything, and felt sapped, unable to summon the energy to maintain the image, the connections, the intricate facade I so often compare to a web structure that I construct and term myself. These are harder to wrench away from, as they usually reflect the existing issues I face in my everyday life. It is just that when my boredom overwhelms me, these issues come to the fore, and my failure to address them satisfactorily becomes a mild obsession.

Eventually though, I do decide to snap out of it. How? I decide. I choose to act in a different manner, and it carries through to how I think. Simplistic? Perhaps. But it is effective. Rather than dwelling upon my problems, I focus on what is before me, what I can deal with and handle and grapple with. I expend my energies upon the immediacy of life rather than on my own psyche, and it works. While I may not be able to recommend this to everybody, for I am certain that each individual has a particular method of retaining sanity, this may be helpful in a pinch.

Well, if nothing else, look at the ups and downs of life as a roller coaster. The way up only builds anticipation for the moment when you're on top, then you realise that there's little at the top but maybe a good view. Eventually, the view becomes a bit tiresome, and the wind is blowing like mad, and you're just chilly. The downward rush may be scary and occasionally painful, but it can sometimes be a welcome change from being perpetually at the top. Besides, if not for the downward rush, where would the momentum for the next upward climb come from? As you progress in life, you slowly lose momentum through your repeated ups and downs, and as you age, the movement becomes less extreme, the changes less pronounced and rapid. But a life that's always in the middle, with no variations, no ups, no downs, seems to me to be lacking in excitement.

So remember that without the downs, there can be no ups, and what does exist will never be quite as exhilarating as if the extremes did present themselves. Just don't let the downward plunge crash you into the ground.

I promised to write something tonight, but it's really hot and I'm tired, so I'll do it tomorrow morning, promise. Very very sorry. Forgive me?

Irritation

Alright, so in acquiescence to a personal request, I shall no longer mention a particular name in my posts.

Note: Scroll down to see the name in question.

Anyway, time to complain a bit. Recently, I have been getting very irritated with all these politically correct people. It seems to offend many sensibilities to note that there are differences between people on a fundamental level, that laws exist, and even if they do not make sense, they must be enforced, that privileges do exist, and can be restricted to certain groups of people, that not everything should be interpreted as a statement. It's ridiculous to raise the level of sensitivity to the point where you are constantly looking for attacks where there are none.

Ok, let's look at something I got on my email a couple of days back. The university is starting a pilot program to provide a shuttle for students, staff, faculty and anyone else affiliated with the school between the campus and the red line train station. Sounds like a perfectly good idea. But some people are apparently planning to protest it. Why? Let me paraphrase a bit. Basically, the exclusive use of the shuttle by the predominantly white student population will be viewed by the predominantly black population of Hyde Park as elitist and racist. I'm sorry, but that is just stupid and ridiculous. It is a school service and therefore should be restricted to persons related to the school. Simple enough reasoning. If you insist, you can view a great many things as being racist and exclusive when they are not. By that reasoning, the quads should be open to all the homeless black people, and don't argue here, the only homeless people I see around are black, and they should be free to wander the campus and bother the students as they please. I am glad for the presence of the UC police presumably keeping the campus free of these pests, for that is what they are. It is illegal to panhandle, and I have no interest in allowing such illegal activities to continue when they directly affect me. Anyway, stepping back to the issue of the buses, the university should then cancel all the school buses, the night buses and the free use of some day buses. After all, they could be construed as racist and elitist, right? Heck, allow the homeless people to come into Bartlett and beg for food, as I have seen some do. Am I elitist for thinking so? Maybe, but it is my right to be. It is also my right, paid for by something along the lines of $45000 a year, to expect the school to provide certain services for me that are not open any and all who have any vague interest in taking advantage of them. Hell, let the residents of Hyde Park come into our classes, then we would really be non-exclusive. Morons, the lot of these people.

Ok, then onto some extremely irritating behaviour that's a bit more general. Some people cannot seem to accept that a politically correct view can simply be wrong empirically. As a professor of mine said, you cannot disagree with an empirical claim simply because it is politically incorrect. We were reading Lev Vygotsky, and he claimed that the most fundamental way in which people make sensory perceptions is different between cultures due to the varying structures of learning. Essentially, people from different cultures really do have different ways of seeing the world and their brains really are wired differently. A horribly politically incorrect sort of claim. If any politician were to do that, he would be accused of being a Nazi equivalent. But is it true? Many people simply could not allow themselves to even consider that. They just kept saying that it cannot be true, because it's a "scary thought" that people are fundamentally different from each other. It seems a very racist thought, and therefore it cannot be true. Are these people stupid or what? A racist claim cannot be true? What is wrong with these people? It can be accepted that people can become smarter or more athletic or whatever throught training, but when the same idea is applied to a more general swathe of humanity, it cannot be true? Come on. Reason seems to have become secondary to sensitivity these days. A hundred years from now, people will look back and say we were fools for being so blinded to the truth by our cultural blocks. Just look at the way we look upon the extreme racism of the American slavery era.

Argh, the irritation is threatening to give me a headache. Enough.

Obsession

Alright, so some people are obsessed with exposure so I shall now place said person's name in the public domain.

Serene Chen Huijing.

Cheap thrill.

Worrying too much is bad for your health

People sometimes wonder why I never seem to worry about things like studies or work or stuff like that. The first, obvious reaction is that I occasionally do. But it is true that I am less concerned about the mundane requirements of life than most people.

So why am I so blase about the things that occupy the minds of the masses? Well, I think I've mentioned before that I don't really want anything out of life except a good time. If not, then read the previous sentence again, and I will have. Anyway, the fact of the matter is that I do not have any major motivation or driving desire to accomplish anything in particular or to 'make a difference'. This occasionally results in me becoming immensely bored with life when I realise I'm not working for anything. Mostly, I just zip through life not caring much one way or another how things turn out, just that the final result is enjoyable. This pretty much works for me in keeping my mind off mundane worries. Of course, my mind then is so free that I start wondering about all sorts of silly things.

Another way of looking at how I handle worries regarding the necessities of life is the compartmentalisation of my mind. I might be worried about a grade that would damage my future money-making prospects eventually, but that is generally running in a discrete section of the brain. The rest of the brain is contemplating how lovely the day is, or the length of the skirt on that hot girl, or the latest acquisition I made in championship manager. So I never appear to be thinking about papers or midterms or anything like that. Unless they are right before me and I am attempting to bring my full concentration to bear upon them, of course.

I also don't generally believe in worrying. Prioritising is important, but panic and frustration solve very little. 5 minutes before a paper is due, it is too late to be panicking. Might as well calm down and regain control of what you do have available to you. Serenity is crucial to deploying available resources effectively. Worrying about what isn't available will not change the situation, so I don't bother doing it. Stress is pointless, and I don't believe in it.

Ah, it's too hot to keep proselytising, so I kept it concise this time round. Be grateful to the heat.

*EXPLICIT*

I really don't like to curse, especially online, but seriously,

KAN

NI

NA

What on earth is wrong with hp shopping? I spend half an hour trying to buy a damn extended warranty from them, and they keep telling me there's a problem with my cookies. I delete my cookies, reload the page to refresh the cookies, eat the cookies, bake them into nice chewy cookies, knead the dough and lick the spoon, and the damn site still won't accept my money.

I hate the Internet. It is evil. Some day, I shall vanquish this evil and drive it from the land.

Or maybe not, depends on my mood.

Punch it, wear it, toss it

I just had a moment of sheer, complete, utter, total, mindblowing genius.

Someone should invent a personal machine that makes disposable clothes.

Imagine a machine sitting in your home that could make clothes on the spot, clothes that would be worn once then discarded. You would input your choice of material, design, size etc, and the machine would make the item on the spot. Finish using it, throw away. I'm not talking about those ridiculous paper clothes either. Real clothing that could be worn on the street without you feeling like a doll or something.

The advantages are plentiful and compelling. First, no more laundry! That's what started me on this line of thought anyway. Laundry is a massive chore. The washing, the drying, the ironing, the hanging. All eliminated from you life in one move. Tissues have rendered handkerchiefs almost obsolete, now it's time for the rest of the clothing family to follow suit.

Second, variety! You will no longer be restricted to your staid, boring wardrobe. You will now have the option of wearing a completely new item every day. Thinking of trying that pink dress, but figure you'll never wear it again after that first night? No worries, just make it, wear it, toss it. Brilliant huh? Never again will you have an excuse for a sad, sorry wardrobe. Everyone can look like Carrie Bradshaw or Pierce Brosnan all the time. In fact, the day after a tv show airs, half the people on the street will be wearing what some popular character was wearing.

Third, no longer will you experience the nightmare of buying a piece of clothing, then realising it's actually hideous or doesn't fit you, or isn't appropriate for anything. Sample as much as you want. After all, if it doesn't work, then toss it and punch up something new tomorrow.

Ok ok, what about the practicalities? Technology specifics, I'll leave to all those MIT and Caltech and whatnot grads, that's what they're there for. Materials? Think of it like gas in those places without piped gaslines. When the cotton, wool, dye, whatever is running out, just call the supply folks, and have them deliver a fresh batch. Quality? Hey, it's meant to be disposable, there's bound to be some decline in quality. If you don't want a substandard product, maybe I can include an option to up the quality for a certain price per item.

Ooh, how about a business model for the fashion houses? After all, the designers must still be paid if they're going to design stuff for us, right? So there can be downloads of particular items from particular brands. For example, you can purchase online a $50 Ralph Lauren Polo Shirt package. This package would then allow you to produce, say, 10 or 20 disposable Ralph Lauren polo shirts. Any colour you want. Each fashion house can set its own prices for each design. To prevent too much copying of logos by individuals on their machines, there obviously will have to be some sort of copy controls on the machines. No doubt there will be people who will hack in anyway, and certainly there will be cheong copies off kazaa, but then again, there are fake goods all over the place now anyway. The fashion houses will probably make less money, but that's not certain, as the costs of business will plummet. All that's required is the designer and a web staff.

And of course, my favourite bit is no more laundry, already mentioned above. Laundry has to be the evilest thing in the world. Eliminate it, I say! Ok, now all the maids in Singapore will try to murder me for attempting to take away their livelihood. Now it's the politically correct people who will hang me for being flippant about maids. Which reminds me about political correctness, which I think is a disease. But another time perhaps.

What would YOU do?

What do you do when you're tired of everything?

What do you do when you wake up in the morning and realise you're exhausted but don't feel like going back to sleep?

What do you do when you sit in front of your computer for hours on end, surfing the same sites over and over again mindlessly, but derive no pleasure from it?

What do you do when you sit up late into the night doing nothing, sleepy beyond words, but unwilling to go to bed?

What do you do when you're sick of the food in the cafeteria, but have no energy to go out to eat?

What do you do when you realise your life is bland and monotonous, but have no momentum to start something new?

What do you do when you realise that studying is nothing like the utopia you imagined it to be throughout your three years in the army?

What do you do when the weather is so screwed up that it can be blazing one day and freezing the next?

What do you do when you start becoming angsty and whiny on your blog?

What do you do when the sky is an absolutely gorgeous shade of blue, so beautiful you just want to sit there and admire it forever, then you can't be bothered and hurry indoors?

What do you do when you stare at your books all day and cannot bring yourself to start studying?

What do you do when you put up an elaborate facade that is your life, then get tired of it, but cannot let it go, because there's nothing underneath the facade?

What do you do when you just get so tired of everything that you cannot even bring yourself to muster the energy to wonder about it?

What do you do when nothing rouses your interest, attention, ire, anything?

What do you do when there are so many questions in your head screaming to be answered?

What do you do when you spend your entire life trying to figure out the answers to those questions but cannot?

What do you do when you feel like giving up on finding any answers at all?

What do you do when everything is going your way, but nothing is going your way?

What do you do when you look at a gorgeous belt online, but cannot muster the enthusiasm to buy it or look for a cheaper alternative?

What do you do when you never get excited anymore?

What do you do when you realise there's nothing you really care about?

What do you do when the grey bleakness of the landscape of your mind is empty and pointless?

What do you do when it all seems slow and tiring?

What do you do when you get no pleasure from anything anymore?

What do you do when your skin refuses to clear up no matter how hard you try?

What do you do when a headache pounds at you constantly without respite for the last ten years or so?

What do you do when the pain becomes so much a part of your consciousness that you hardly notice it anymore unless you focus on it?

What do you do when the scenery is brilliant and engaging, just not to you?

What do you do when your friends think you're a depressing, boring sort, and you can't disagree?

What do you do when the little things stop mattering?

What do you do when the big things have never mattered?

What do you do when you feel like letting things crash down about you just to see what it would be like?

What do you do when you're too scared to do it?

What do you do when you cannot understand why you're scared, if nothing really matters?

What do you do then?

Classic

Sometimes I'm just tired. Of everything. It just seems too much effort to plough on in life when I don't even know what I'm trying to reach. Everything I do seems to require effort. Nothing comes easily to me. Well, alright, except for school. But even school is beginning to look a bit pointless to me. What is the point anyway? Theoretically, I could go work for my father, despite my distaste at the prospect, which I will not go into here. In that case, what value will a university degree really hold? If I'm working for my father, I could tell people I graduated first in my class at MIT, and nobody would dispute it. In that case, I should just drop this whole school thing and start work straight away. Save me three years of my life too.

Even if I don't cave in and go sponge off my dad, the value of a university degree has become suspect in my mind. After all, all the degree is worth is about ten seconds in the job interview when the interviewer looks at the copy of the degree, goes,

"Hmmm, so you're from the University of Chicago, eh?"

After that, it is set aside. Three years of work for ten seconds of recognition. Is it worth it? If I were to start work now at whatever level I can, is it possible for me to work my way up to the same level as a fresh university graduate? I suspect it is. In that case, why do I not? Some may claim that the career path of university graduates is smoother and faster than non-graduates. That may be true, but do I really want to stick to the corporate flag flying sort of career anyway? How is that going to make me millions of dollars? Even the CEO of Citibank, pretty much in the highest echelons of corporate existence, makes something like $10 million a year. Which is pretty good, but what are the chances that I will manage to make it to the ranks of the top 10 or 20 executives in the world? Pretty damn remote.

Note that I do not think I am not capable of joining that exclusive club, but the chances of everything running in my favour through 30 years of my career, which is pretty much what would be necessary to make it that far, is low. I am certain there are plenty of extremely capable people who are simply not lucky enough to rise as high as they might go.

So the alternative might be to go start my own business. If I do that, what precisely is all this fine education good for? I have never heard of a successful businessman constructing a mathematically precise economic model to guide his or her actions. If you were to show Jürgen Schrempp my homework from Econ 200, there is a good chance he would not be able to make heads or tails of it. Ever heard of somebody making a wildly successful business decision because the economists told him to? I certainly haven't. It doesn't take an MBA or a PhD in economics to be good at doing business. The classic story is of the poor kid who became a billionaire from his humble beginnings as an entry level sort of worker by being very very sharp. Look at Li Ka Shing. He didn't rely on an excellent education or complex economic models to become rich as hell.

So what am I doing? The stated purpose of my education is to gain me a headstart in the race to the top of the economic ladder. But will it, really? Unless I change the way I perceive my education, the value is beginning to be lost on me.

Maybe I'm just tired.