RRRuffles have Ridges

I cannot believe that the first all-nighter of the year is over a lousy problem set. I thought that my choosing four classes without any essays would preclude me from having to go through this shit again. Now, not only have my hopes in this respect been dashed, it turns out I have to write an essay for biology. Somebody please explain to me the point of making me write a bloody essay for biology. I can almost understand their stated purpose of teaching us to write clearly and concisely, but hasn't that been done in the humanities and social sciences?

This whole core education thing is a crock. Honestly, what the hell do I need to know biology for? Or art history? Even if I do, is it asking too much for an introductory course to be conducted at a pace and level accessible to someone with zero science background? The amount of material we're expected to cover is utterly ridiculous. The bloody textbook is way too massive for a 10 week class. The stupid quarter system is just completely and totally evil. I can understand academically intense, but this really is beyond all limits of tolerance. Come on, who on earth starts an introductory biology class by going over the makeup and structure of DNA in the first few sessions? I don't know this stuff, and I can't remember it simply it came out of your mouth the one time.

I think I'm going insane. Too much logic. That doesn't really make sense, I know. More logic should make me less prone to the randomness of insanity. The exact opposite occurs. I find that the regimentation of my thought processes for an extended period of time tends to cause a build up of impatience and energy. So I'm trapped in some sort of manic exhaustion at the moment. It's going to have to last me till at least 6 pm Friday. After that, I can collapse. Oh wait, I can't. I have a dinner appointment after that on Friday evening. I think I'll pick a decadent and utterly wonderful place, simply because I need the stress relief. I'll ask around for some recommendations and pick some gorgeous place. At least my dining companion will be pleasant enough.

Somehow, Chinese songs seem to strike a chord in my head. Strange, because I rarely listened to Chinese music, or any music, for that matter, while I was younger. Now, they soothe and calm me somewhat. So my chewing of gum has slowed in intensity, and my typing is not as frantic as it was a minute ago. I am grateful indeed for Wu Yin Liang Pin, even if they no longer exist.

I am also a fan of Ruffles Original chips. Bloody expensive, but good stuff. Honestly, those gourmet potato chips don't do it for me. Good ol' Ruffles does. So does Wrigley chewing gum, actually. Particularly the classic Doublemint, in green, of all colours. I detest green. One of those colours I cannot abide. If I had a choice, I would abolish all green from my sight forever. Substitute with some new colour. Note that I cannot visualise a suitable replacement for green, simply because if I could, the colour would already exist. That really is quite interesting, when you think about it. Ideas exist the instant they are conceived. Before then, they are nothing. So it is impossible for an undiscovered colour to exist, since once it is conceived of, it already exists.

Ok, I'm rambling badly, and I need to finish this damn thing and hop off to class tomorrow morning. So I'll stop now.

eBay is EVIL

This is utterly ridiculous. I spent literally half my day yesterday working on a problem set which I failed to complete, got an extension on it, and now I'm happily refusing to continue working on it. Instead, I sit here letting my fingers do a little dance on the keyboard while my mind flutters about.

I think I need a set of speakers for my room. The Logitech z2300 set looks pretty impressive, but they run a bit expensive. I'll chew it over and decide later. No rush anyway. The money seems to be flowing freely these days, and a bit of control might be in order. Taking into consideration my contemplation of a ridiculously expensive dinner this weekend, and I need to slow things down. In more respects than one.

Oh, I've recently discovered eBay, which is fast becoming the main villain for the problem highlighted above. Everything is so damn cheap there, especially clothes. Only thing is that you can never be sure of quality or fit. What exacerbates the problem is the complete unreliability of these things. After all, if I wanted to cheat lots of people of lots of money on eBay, I imagine I would be quite successful. Set up a system where you register hundreds or thousands of accounts, then conduct transactions between these accounts, leaving multiple positive ratings, and create a network of false goodwill. Then start using these accounts in controlled batches to set up false auctions, whereby you collect the money from other people, then close the account. If this is properly set up, then it is nearly impossible to be caught. In the end, there really is no protection against fraud in the world of eBay.

It is rather interesting how popular online auctions have become despite the lack of any security for such transactions. It is indicative of both the belief that people have in strangers in society, and of the decency of the majority of society.

Ok, pick this up again later. I NEED to start work.

Get in line

Whoopee, the first actually vaguely busy week of the year is winding down. Of course, it couldn't end without one last bit of work left. So the way forward is clear. I shall happily let it lie where it is, in the land of the incomplete, while I tap away at my keyboard, blogging about something pointless and irrelevant, trying to escape the mundanity and desperation of my life.

Ok, so this is going to be about something that's bothered me for a while, and it's going to be spectacularly politically incorrect. So if that bothers you, go away now. I'll wait for a moment.

Ho.

Hum.

La.

Dee.

Da.

We're good? Good. Now, let me tell you how this particular train of thought started, maybe three or four months ago. Somewhere around the beginning of summer, I was slumped in my couch at home, watching television in the middle of the afternoon. By the way, that remains my single favourite activity at home of all time. If I had a choice, I would spend the entirety of all my summers indulging myself in this particular mode of stoning.

Wait, let me go on a digression, as my math instructor used to say. Stoning seems to be a colloqualism that, in the circles of Singapore youth at least, originated fairly exclusively from the elitist ranks of Raffles Institution. Don't argue the point. It's just something I've noticed. I don't care if I'm wrong. If I am, then you're wrong, and I'm right. So there. Anyway, the most obvious interpretation of this term would be that which is derived from 'stoned', a term that is used to signify the state of mind that is induced by ingestion of vast quantities of alcohol or other substances that numb the senses and reduce clarity of mind. It could also have some reference to stones in the mineral sense, the idea being that stones have little in the way of discernible or measurable mental or physical activity. So to 'stone' or to indulge in 'stoning' would be to reduce one's physical and mental exertions to the barest minimum. Inactivity is the entire point of 'stoning'. While this may sound boring, the truth is that there is no better remedy for the exhaustion of real life than to simply refuse to acknowledge it for a while. Letting oneself go slack-jawed in front of a television screen, electricity turned on or not, may not sound very appealing to modern sensibilities of the intellectual person. Yet the most pretentious of souls must at some moment weary of the demands of continual thought. In the corridors of RI, where the most eager and indoctrinated minds in the land are cultivated, this term, 'stoning', was well employed. Even the young and enthusiastic find themselves in need of such a state, and this state is achieved so often and so commonly that a term must be invented for it. What better indictment of the assumption that Man is bound, at every moment of life, to endeavour, to strive to better himself, to reach beyond what is within his grasp?

Alright, enough of that nonsense. So I was slumped in my extremely comfortable sofa, watching a rerun of some inane local Chinese language drama serial. In this particular TV show, one of the characters is wheelchair-bound. So this fellow has to go, and proceeds to the washroom. As he waits outside the cubicle designated for the use of the disabled, the impatience on his face becomes visible. Eventually, a man walks out of the cubicle. As is to be expected, this man looks rather smug and arrogant. So our disabled friend starts lecturing this man on how the abled should never EVER touch a disabled cubicle. The man looks somewhat bemused and walks away. You would think this was the end of it, but no, our wheelchair-bound buddy tries to physically accost the evil man and make him repent for his heinous sins of inconveniencing the crippled. Naturally, this winds up with our protagonist off the chair and on the floor, while his girlfriend, a physically quite delectable specimen, though with some questionable sartorial choices, rushes to his rescue. In a male toilet? Disregarding that, our hero and heroine glare at the villian of the piece as he saunters off.

Here's the thing that is likely to get me a earful from many people. I actually think the crippled chap had no business bothering that man. Now, I do not approve of violence being done to the disabled, but no more than to any other law-abiding member of the community whom I do not intensely dislike. Which is the point. The disabled do not deserve any special advantages. Concessions perhaps, but advantages are going a bit far. Taking the case of disabled cubicles in washrooms. It hardly seems fair that the instant a wheelchair is sighted in the toilet, all able-bodied personnel should flee the scene. Now, I do think that the disabled should get to use the particularly equipped cubicles, but seriously, GET IN LINE.

Think about it this way. Imagine there's an intermission in a sports event or something. We have thousands of people rushing to the very limited number of toilets. The queues snake around the stadium. Then one fellow in a wheelchair makes his way into the washroom, bypasses the throngs of people crossing their legs and hopping a little to conceal the urgency on their minds, or on other parts of their anatomy, and enters the disabled cubicle to relieve himself.

I don't know about you, but this seems pretty unfair to me. Just because you can't walk, you get to cut the queue? If you absolutely need to use the disabled cubicle, join the line for that cubicle. Now, I do think that people who aren't cripples should not hog disabled facilities, but they have the same right to pee as the next guy in a wheelchair. So queues in this case should be evenly distributed, with guys who are disabled joining the line for the appropriate cubicle. So each cubicle gets the same number of people waiting for it, subject to the condition that all the disabled people are in the line for the disabled cubicle.

Logical, no?

Do note that I used this particular example to illustrate a larger point. I hope it's clear enough what that point is, because anybody who knows me is aware I don't like to be too long-winded and draggy about explaining things.

On an unrelated note, I think I should stop expecting credit where it's due, and accepting it where it's given. Life would be a lot more jovial.

Alright, back to pretending to be serious about studying and stuff.

Perhaps I am unreasonable

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
- George Bernard Shaw

And the answer to the million dollar question is ...

Nobody, apparently.

Insatiable

I find that when I second guess myself, it inevitably turns out to be a mistake. If I make a decision, it generally turns out for the best if I simply leave it as it is. The problem is that I keep turning things over in my head ceaselessly, as a natural process. Even if I haven't been actively thinking about it, so many things seem to be running in the background that occasionally I find a thought surfacing regarding some issue I thought I left behind long ago.

It seems to me that the entire process of inquiry, whether in a purer intellectual sense or based in the nitty-gritty of everyday life, is severely overrated. When a person questions and questions, seeking ever more answers, he finds that there are many answers to be found, but also more levels of questions. At every level of inquiry, the answers become more and more scarce, less and less satisfying. Imagine a child who asks his father why the sky is blue. The answer could be as complicated as an explanation of the physics of light refraction and all that jazz, or it could be as simple as this.

"Because God was painting the world, and when he got to the sky, all he had left was blue."

Perhaps this might prompt a further question along the lines of "Why didn't he have any more colours left?"

An answer might be "Because he spilled all the other colours onto the earth. That's why there are so many different colours in the world. When the sun sets or rises, the heat from the sun starts to melt some of the paint on the earth, so some of it gets mixed into the sky, creating all the interesting effects of the evening sky."

Such an answer may not satisfy anyone but the youngest of children, but by ceasing the inquiry at this stage, the child is left with a sense of wonder and satisfaction. The answer was satisfying and complete, so why bother to investigate further? Contentment follows.

In sharp contrast, the student or intellectual of today is expected to demonstrate unflagging enthusiasm for learning and indefatigable curiosity. The problem with the unwavering strength of this desire to find out more about the world is that there is no satiating it. An academic who can admit to no longer being interesting in new findings and knowledge would be hounded out of his professional sphere. So by definition, the intellectual must possess a desire for something that cannot under any circumstances be allowed to be fulfilled. Instead, he must carefully nurture and control the feeding of this desire, making it starve just a little, before allowing some scrap of new information. Alternatively, he could whip it up into such a size that it cannot be filled by all the information possibly available to him. So the choice is between pettiness and greed.

Forsaking this choice and opting instead to allow curiosity to die at an early stage is anathema to most people. We are expected to commit to learning our entire lives. Old women who learn to use the internet are held up as paragons of virtue, the ultimate example of what we should be doing throughout our lives. Yet, has anyone ever considered the fatigue that must accompany such need to constantly expand the mind? Can the greed of the brain ever be reined in? We abhor excess in the physical realm, it stands to reason that we should similarly detest excess in the mental. This is not the case in reality. Mental excess is considered a mark of prominence and achievement. By this measure, moving away from physical excess and embracing mental excess, should we not aspire to be some sort of human computer?

The classic science fiction nightmare of brains floating about in tanks of fluid while robots bustle about maintaining these pure consciousnesses is the ideal for these suppositions. After all, cutting out the problems of food, shelter and sex has been the target for our modern civilisation for some time. We try to resolve the issues of world hunger, or simply seek to have more food than need be consumed for nutrition, so we can set these problems aside and focus on other things. Shelter need only be adequate, for we condemn those who build lavish mansions. Sex has been suppressed for centuries. It is not to be mentioned, much less committed in public. If we gradually eliminate these worries, then we will move toward the ideal of sitting about thinking all day. Ancient Greece was described as such a utopia, where the men were able to lounge about indulging in intellectual gymnastics while their physical needs were taken care of.

The general dissatisfaction that must accompany insatiable intellectual curiosity has to be exhausting and draining. Maybe sometimes it is better to be the child who watches the sunset and imagines God knocking over his palette.

The Calm

Hmmm, the truth is that I'm not really tired, dispirited or irritated at all at the moment. Alright, so I'm a touch tired, but that's just a physical sleepiness, not the usual numbing exhaustion that overwhelms my mind. And now that the internet connection is almost all the way up (no wireless yet), I can sit here in my apartment and surf happily.

Ok, so I'm sitting on the floor because I don't have my furniture yet. And those idiots have yet to find, account for or deliver the missing items. I think I'll stop payment on the furniture and the delivery. See, I'm not angry or irritated about the missing furniture. Instead of getting upset about this little thing, I'm going to solve the problem. I won't pay them, so it's no longer my problem. I'll go buy some stuff from Belmont or Crate & Barrel instead. C & B has some nice-looking stuff. Of course, it is much more expensive than Ikea, but at least I'll have my furniture.

Beginning to get a bit wearing to keep using the dining table to study. It's a bit uncomfortable, and I worry about scratching the glass. Oh yes, last night I did my first bit of work for the academic year of 2004/2005. Turns out I shouldn't have bothered. The damn class was closed. Now I'm going to have to find another math class. Ah well, the instructor was really quite bad. I have nothing against him personally, but I think I'm entitled to not like my instructors.

Ok, my parents are in town, which means I have to sleep in the living room. Well, it's alright, considering how comfy the badly delivered sofa is. I am amazed at my ability to brush things off tonight. I think I shall leave it at that before my calm fails me.

Stoopid connection

Sigh, the internet connection in my new apartment refuses to come up, so here’s a coupla random ramblings I tossed up on a tired Friday night.

Today I saw a squirrel on the road as I was wandering about campus. Somehow, this particular squirrel caught my attention and held it, not for the usual banal reasons of cuteness or dignity, but for its hesitance. It was doing that odd hopping thing squirrels do when they’re in a hurry, but not in the usual way. Instead of the smooth graceful motions that are the norm, it was doing a half hop, then pausing, making a motion to continue with the next hop, but hesitating, then finally lurching into another semi-aborted hop. This continued for a while, before the squirrel eventually gave up and started walking.

I somehow relate to that. The urge to crash into high gear held back by a sense of complacency and sloth. I feel like I should be upping the tempo, surging forward in search of something, but after a few stumbling steps, I lose all momentum, and a more plodding pace ensues.

Sometimes, I feel like I try too hard. I reach and stretch to accommodate. Now, I am a little worn out and tired, lacking the energy to keep making an effort to reach out. So I stop and rest for a while. Then I discover that when I stop reaching out, there is no effort on the other side to reach out to me instead. If this is the case, then I am merely being a fool to resume my efforts to bridge the gap. Effort has to be directed in all directions, or I can only term the entire affair a case of wishful thinking. I feel the need to close the gap, but others do not. They merely allow the gap to be closed, but see no need to put in any investment of their own. So why continue an effort that is so selfish on both sides? The other parties just take and take, with no input, nor any apparent desire to provide any. I, on the other hand, am the only one who actually desires the continuation of the connection. Perhaps it is better, more sensible, less wrenching to simply let things fall away. The bridge has already deteriorated, and onlookers wonder why I do not repair it. Well, if I am the only one who crosses the bridge, I suppose it is reasonable that I am the only one who has to maintain it. Yet if I am the only one who uses and maintains it, there seems little point in continuing to keep it up. After all, a bridge should have traffic both ways.

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe when I tired and let the bridge fail, the other party thought I lost interest, and so acted accordingly. If this is the case, then it is certainly my fault. Still, I am beginning to wonder if it is unreasonable to occasionally expect some reciprocal efforts at understanding and communication. After all, if communication only runs one way, then it can only be termed a failure.

I too can become angry, tired, hurt, despairing. These are more than mere surface emotions, to surface when something obvious occurs. Simple apathy, a lack of appreciation, a refusal to even try to scratch the surface, an instant defensive reaction, a demonstration of a complete lack of understanding. These are things that arouse that emotion which I let swell in my breast, but refuse to unleash.

Perhaps I was right the first time, and things should be allowed to rest at the stage of letting enough be enough. I am lost for a direction, and at this point, my pride does not let me run back whimpering without even the slightest indication of mutual desire for continuation. Much as I may have resembled one in the past, I am no dog, to return to its master without condition. The very notion offends me so deeply I am tempted to set my anger loose. But that would be of little use. Better to let things fade and die quietly. Would that death be subtle and quick, not to torment me more. Yet I must admit, all I need is the slightest hint for my rectitude to flee from me completely. I despair of its coming.