Passion.

Don't you love it when the title is just one word and yet there are a plethora of thoughts flooding to you? It is similar to the one-word essay we wrote back in Secondary schools, one single word illuminate a room of perennial possibilities. Okay I always need something casual and homey to start off a long post, so bear with me if you find the opening greasy in some sense. 

Like the title suggests, I'm going to expatiate on the extent of passion. Passion, is one of the core values Riverside instills us throughout the years. It is very unique on retrospect, there are so many core values recycled and even abused by many schools (namely integrity, responsibility, caring, respect..) and passion is not one of them. It is not to say other institutions do not recognise the importance of passion, it is just somehow the concept of imparting passion doesn't occur to them. Riverside, despite all its other moral flaws, recognised it and in turn benefitted me profusely. 

Just as many people said, you will overcome all sorts of hurdles and obstacles if you love whatever you are doing to a very fervent extent. I loved play pc games when I was in my teens. I was involved in a RPG game to such a colossal extent that I dreamt myself in the virtual world, establishing my own kingdom and having a life as a monarch. Then I would start writing stories about me living in the fabricated Kingdom. I wasn't a good writer, not as good as now (self-flattery admitted), but I racked my brain hard to come up with a captivating introduction and worded the story in a redolence of medieval styles. 

At that point of time I was completely engrossed in my composition and I didn't realise I have only limited time every day, with CAs coming up. Hence the time lacking saying for doing a task is just a telltale sign of lacking passion. To me having a burning desire of doing something is like immersing your spirit into a new medium, the chemicals in your brain and blood automatically attuned to the new fluid and the sluice of the new horizon slides open in front of you. 

Then it comes to skills. Many people want to sing, but not having a naturally talented voice. Many people want to write, but lacking vocabulary and literary knowledge. Guess it really does not take me to remind them skills are to be honed, not to be borned with. If you really love to sing that much, and you are conscious of the fact that you do not have a honey voice, the fire of passion will drive you to seek for improvements, persistently. One of the the Pixar founder, Ed Catmull, elucidated in his book 'Creativity Inc.' that whenever there is a problem the solution is to 'get smarter'. Put it in a more ludicrous sense, this means upgrade your skills until the problem is more or less resolved. Catmull and his team always have this incessant fuelling of passion for animation works and never once they backed down on any production just because 'lack of time' or 'don't know now to produce that' or 'not enough people.' Toy Story 2 was a product of gruelling 9-months of work where all the members slogged away at their own expenses and faced problems of time lacking or skill inadequacy head on. Too many instances indicate that the myriad of success and passion are indispensable.

The real problem of many people, including me, is having no clue what or where their passion are. Many people's interests and hobbies live like a mayfly, lifetime of one day. It is of no surprise because many of our passion are honed or unconsciously incubated at a really tender age. Catmull was inspired by Disney since young; Bill Gates had paritulcuar likes to small gadgets when he was kid; JK Rowling started to write novels when she barely knew how to read. Though many of them have shaped their path of interest since young but the common denominator here is not the age but the exposure of opportunities. Books, media, technology provides an endless glimpse of opportunities gurgling continuously with the jibe of time. The fact that they get access to such wide berth of opportunity at a young age allows them to perfect the required skills longer. Thus what we need is exposure to opportunities. The ways to see the world, explore the possibilities, swap different perspectives. Then it may come a time passion knocks on your door.

It is practically of no use by trying to buttress yourself a paritulcuar interest of something. I have a spineless cousin, well call me rude if you want but I know I love him more than any cousins do, he is a soon-to-be doctor. His parents are so restless with his future by imploring the various chances of going overseas to study or work. But he is just transcendently nonchanlent. Deaf to all the implorations and oblivious to the somersaults caused among the other family members regarding his own damn career. To him, nothing matter a whit if he can get sufficient provision for himself and nothing catastrophic would happen. Sometimes people ignore the possibility of other trajectories when they are blinded by the ephemeral current status. But, it is always ephemeral, in most of the context.

I am on my way to the passion that belongs to me. I am sure if I reach the destination the sky will be the most azure one ever, the clouds will be the fluffiest and fleeciest ever, the river is constantly gurgling and the horizon slowly lights up with the majestic garish shades while I stream down the river in a flotilla of new ventures. The picture I am painting here is ease and euphoria, not necessarily felicity. We all know there is more to life than finding a career you love.

The complex, and it's complex.

Hello everyone. Hope all of you had a whale of time for Lunar New Year. When I looked back on my past Lunar New Year celebrations, the nostalgia was so overwhelming that I almost drowned in it. Sadly speaking people like me who was deemed to lead a drifting life always wont to view traditional festivals in a more detached manner with every year gone by. Anyway, don't worry my dear readers, I'm not here to talk twaddle on the falling significance of Chinese new year, the reason is I had already exhausted my present insights on the previous post about the imbecile roots theory so whatever I could elucidate today would hardly pass those pitfalls.

Something happened to me prior the Lunar New Year. The details of that revolting incident I do not wish to illustrate again but it stimulates me to ponder on one perpetual yet modern concept: inferiority complex. The problem for me is, if I want to delve into the issue in depth it is bound to drag in extremely touchy topics regarding races and nationalities. Nowadays the internet has laced the social network with fatal poison of self-righteousness (and that complex) hence it is perilous to fondle these touchy things in conjunction with the insightful thoughts without kindling the idiotic fire of accusations. Therefore to avoid the danger of waging a futile war with morons, the substance in the reasoning part would be a lot weaker.

Having that said, I'm not giving up on shedding light (personal beautiful enlightenment, let me quote from C.S Lewis 'if it doesn't help you, drop it.') on certain psychological problems. Simply because I want to inspire people to change this damn complex in them and also, if people are unbelievably obdurate in persisting feeling inferior, they can at least minimize the degree of abject agony on others.

Inferiority complex has been very prevalent probably since any mental enlightenments pervaded in all civilizations, and social media in today's age and time makes it appears to be more rampant than ever. Just before this wonderful post I saw someone post on Facebook appearing dismal that she wanted to be as good as everybody because she feels she's lacking in everything. Despite the fact that I'm a socially impaired person, the rational region of the brain tells me give her some sort of solace and conciliate her in the 'warmest' wording possible. But I don't feel like it.

Yup I don't feel like placating such people by racking my brain on compliments. Firstly I'm socially impaired (or I'm just a nasty person if that's a more comfortable construal for you) and secondly I don't think it is going to be helpful to present ostentatious praises as a remedy for her inferiority. But then I still managed to come up with some compliments wrapped in the form of reminders, reminding her she has musical talents. Don't think that's going to work for long, but still, I tried to change my own disposition a little.

I understand how it is like to feel when you are not as good as others. The feeling is intensely suffocating and basically your mind and soul are laced with cobra's venom, killing yourself and grooming a huge potential of hurting others. The very first step to solution is to know you do not know everyone. On what basis can you know a clear indication of other people's ability with comparison of yours? How do you know he or she is not experiencing the same complex as you? You may say you know this person well enough that he or she is well-versed in a particular field. But then again you are not him or her. You compare yourself to such a person and that person may be comparing himself or herself to someone better. He or she may not even care about how you think of him or her, what he or she wants is to surpass someone better.

Of course I am also aware there are some people who just love to bask their credentials in front of their peers. Such homo sapiens are just slightly above basic creatures and they need to have hubris reeking off their visage to maintain their self-esteem, pitiful organisms really. Those credentials are nothing in my eyes when someone incessantly neglecting their inner well-being and live on other people's glares as a parasite does. It is like a dog who is able to hunt well, you give recognition to its skills but that's all. You wouldn't, in your right mind, reverently adore it like you adore your parents. A dog is a dog, it is right for you to treat it properly without abusing it in any ways but not obliged for you to idolize it and endorse the creature with human rights. My point is, ignore them by lowering those people from human to humanoid low-level creatures. No matter how stupid you think you are, you won't lick a dog's balls, will you? Will you?

Guess that factual rudimental knowledge is just another paper-thin layer of statement, most of you probably still feeling shitty about yourself. Fine then, you are lousy. You are not as good as everyone. So what are you going to do about it? Walk around the neighbourhood with draped cheeks like Churchill (btw he is one of the last people I would title under inferior) and a sullen face, pour out the pains to whoever you meet, and waste time talking about solutions and then starts the cycle all over again tomorrow morning. Well sometimes I wonder if these people really want to escape the inferior zone. Aren't they not enjoying themselves tremendously by self-pitying? If you really endorse the idea of self-pitying so much, limits that to your acquaintances or your ex-es or any strangers that doesn't care about you a whit. Inflicting such emotions on people who love you would just prodigiously taunts them within. What hurts them the most is not you're feeling inferior but the situation where you refuse to remove the mental shackles which you chain yourselves with.

What I did to myself was, first shook off the wrong perception that I blatantly assumed to know every other human being's strength and then did the necessary 'see no evil' baptism and at last, in an effort to dredge up the remaining inferior shreds, I ventured into self-enhancement. I wrote poorly so I started reading books, attempting to raise the writing style to a new horizon. I spoke poorly, so I imitate people who speaks well. I was a slow reader, so I took on certain speed reading trainings and now I can finish reading a medium volume book in just a few hours. Oh before you mock me on how trivial my problem seems to be, I need to remind you again you are not me. You will not know that in my world, my problems swell as big as nuclear armament.

About the final outcomes of my self-enhancement programme I cannot give a definite answer on how much I had progressed. Reason being I don't know. I mean we are not playing RPG so there isn't a little rectangular box on the upper left hand corner to check if I had levelled up. What I am happy is that I know I'm definitely improving, though sometimes it bugs me that no clear reports I can secured to check how far I've gone but the fact that I am literally modifying the inner being on a daily basis has already jabbed me much exhilaration that no amount of complex can rob away. 

I genuinely hope those of you whose heads buzzed with inferiority complex demons can purge them with a determination to exsanguinate Hitler. Please remember whenever you indulge yourself in self-pitying, first and foremost your brain is convulsed with such rancour which will ultimately spill on those who care about you.

Good night, folks.

Non Sequitur, 'roots'.

Good evening everyone. As I keep lamenting to my friends recently, it's only February and the heat is already beyond my tolerance threshold. I just don't get it why people are willing to reside in tropical areas in the past.

Interestingly my sentiments regards to the tropical heat is not unique. Our arguably founding father of Little Red Dot Lee Kwan Yew, let's call him Harry here, has the same physiological reaction to the warmth as me. I knew this little fact from the book I'm recently munching on, 'Lee Kwan Yew' by Alex Josey. Though some idiosyncratic critics be like, "is this fact or fiction?" Fortunately I have arrived at the age where truculence is no longer my cup of latte.

I have yet to finish the book, in fact I only started on Tuesday. But it is rather quick to obtain a very conherent and revoking impression of Harry's personality. Harry is definitely not the wizard who has a lightning scar on his forehead, letting indecisiveness write his destiny during his junior years in Hogwarts; neither is he the smiley British singer in One Direction nor the scandalous prince in Buckingham Palace. He is the Harry with a resting bitch face, a resolute soul and mind, seemingly bumptious and voluble. He is the Harry in Singapore.

No matter how overwhelming his public impression is, I think it is a bit risky to conclude his whole personality and character in a few paragraphs. Also the focus of my writing today is not to critique his political style or personal life, but to inch very closely to one of his ideology: bilingualism.

Many will attribute Singapore's smooth diplomatic handling and its economic triumph due to bilingualism, an educational scheme to remind us 'never forget our roots.' Listen pals, I have nothing against bilingualism. In fact I like the idea of learning more than 1 language, I admire famous polyglots like Steve Kaufmann and Benny Lewis for their galvanizing perseverance and energy. The part that repels me hard is where Harry emphasized on the term 'roots'.

It seems like the intention of him introducing the scheme is to ask us not to forget our origins and ethinics: China Chinese, Malaya Malay, India Tamil/Hindi. These things, stay hurt if you are offended, are taken as our 'roots'. In chapter 3, 'How much a Chinese', Harry was quoted something like 'if we forget our roots, we will be blown away and be miserable.' Something like that, you get the gist.

I scoffed so hard at that part and my latte almost spilled. Roots? The origins and ethinics? You mean we learn our mother tongue is to grasp onto the roots? Sorry you lost me Harry, I totally don't see any points in 'grasping' any 'roots'.

Blown away? What do you mean by that? Do you mean people will view us as less a human and belittle us because we don't speak the language people of our skin colour converse? Follow this austere logic, we should see riots and protests among cantakerous americans in US every day! Among those people their ancestors can come from Germany, where Dutch is spoken; Originates in Africa continent, where Swahili is widely used; From Ireland, where Irish or Gaelic dwells. But you see! In U.S people of all colours just speak English, with adequte fluency and pronounciation, and they survive well! Perhaps too well.

Do any of those people dig out their past and ancestry and start learning whatever language their grandfathers speak? More imperatively are those fellows haunted in incessant ignomony for not knowing their mother tongue?

In the chapter the author briefly touched on the fact that Chinese take a special and painful pride to their 'roots'. I don't know why, guess it's something with a little bit historical reseach and evolutionary psychology can explain. The thing bugs me is people just swallowed whatever Harry imposed on them. I mean seriously? Do your guys give a little thought on the rational behind the 'roots' thing?

What infuriates me further is how modern people swallow the idea same as the people of 1960s. Just a few days ago someone on Facebook was lamenting how Singaporean Chinese not able to converse verbosely in Mandarin while some white kids are able to is letting their roots withering and how this phenomenon leads to misery of the mass. I scoffed so beautifully that my laptop hanged.

That is the most hilarious and revolting statement I read this year so far (gosh to think 2015 just started). This person, on her status, she mentioned about how Koreans and Japanese forget to speak Koreans and Japanese is a ridiculous thing. I laughed at this point and my iPad hanged.

Dude do you know most of the Koreans and Japanese are descendants of early immigrants since B.C era? Dude do you know both ancient Koreans and Japanese use Chinese Characters in scripts and possibly speaking a Chinese language too? Dude are you aware of these general knowledge? Thought you are a Chinese major? According to your austere logic both Koreans and Japanese are supposed to be showered in shame for not using Chinese language? Their actual quality of lives should be a lugubrious one because they forget their roots? Dude even though you are a Singaporean who probably belong to the category of 'frogs in the bottom of the well', your indolence is not excused. Sorry I was too bitter to take a moderate stance.

In addition to this type of litany complaints from NUSians, I think if we want to be despondent over a language, that language should be our lingua franca English! A nation claims her first language is English (which means native to some extent) and everywhere we see English signs, but look at the proficiency of English of the mass! Wrong use of words, overuse of jargons, wrong pronounciation, unclear articulation, choppy fluency... (Look here pals, I'm talking about English, not Singlish). These common mistakes are not only immensely commited by uncivilized thugs and uneducated pricks (go and assume who I am referring to, good luck), these are the English crimes committed by so-called educated first world citizens. LOL. More than once foreigners (native speakers) are stunned (in the most negative way possible) at the level of English people spoke here. Many of them just refused to be convinced that our first language is English lol, an accent mixed of 'Indian and Chinese'. LOL ROOTS PEOPLE ROOTS.

As my reply to her status, I believe learning language is just learning a freaking language! Peoplr should be given credits for spending so much time and efforts on learning a new language. Their purpose may range from economic interests to cultural mesmerization. People in States learn all sorts of languages like Thai and Burmese which have no ancestral connections with them, further debunks the stupid 'roots' theory. My ancestry dates back to Dongpo Su and this guy was just an amazing poet, painter and academic model. He probably didn't speak Mandarin, but another Chinese language which was gruadually diluted or lost when Mongolia Khans invaded China. And today I speak English and Mandarin which was going from bad to worse (but sufficient enough to communicate with people). I intend to learn Dutch and Korean too.

Honestly I don't know Harry really meant what he said. I like him. His various social values has incalculable resonance as mine. Maybe he just wanted to convince people to learn a second language so came up with this non sequitur. I don't know, let me shrug, hopefully laptop is fine.







It is fine. Yay.
Bye.

The logic - Romantic love.

Maybe I am not a very suitable candidate when it comes to topics regarding romance and marriages. I witnessed too many failed marriages around me and that undeniably seeded some doubts and pessimism in me. Also the fact that I had a childish but a long crush on someone when I was 16 is not counted as a romantic experience because there was no second party involved. Thus being someone who has a slightly nefarious attitude towards romantic love and with no prior experience of this sort, people may find whatever I will be saying in this post as unreliable and biased. Maybe, maybe not. Because I don't go by the experiential route lecturing but instead I focus on logic of biological survival traits.

I think everyone can agree with me that the existence of marriage is able to stand by its own without the addition of romantic love. Thus it is safe to assume that many of our ancestors got married mainly due to the evolutional mind-set to pass on the genes. The presence of romance in the later stages not only beautifies the culture and history, but also provides as an essential reason to be with someone permanently.

You look at the person, mesmerised by his or her beauty, charmed by his or her humour and touched by the kindness and strong spirits that were within him or her. Then you decide this is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, because you enjoy his or her presence and you're certain you will not regret.

The paragraph above is a very simple and straightforward almost ideal process of marriage which starts from romance. The world will be a much cleaner, yes cleaner not necessarily better, place if everyone follow this suits somehow or another. Single parents and illegitimate children will not exist or at least will be much less prevalent than nowadays. By the way if you think I have prejudice against single parents and illegitimate children, go ahead and stay offended.

Well the problem here is many many people are not like this. They get themselves messily involved in romance and wonder why their relationship do not turn out anywhere near bliss.

Many people, seem to have this irregular 'romance' switch in their minds. Upon reaching certain stages or phases in their lives, such as reaching the age of 18 or 21, reached puberty, work life stabilized, become rich and stepping into middle-age, they feel it is time for them to have a partner. This is problem number one. They want to find a partner because it is time to do so, it is right to do so, it is fun to do so. They venture out to rummage one creature which is willing to feel it is time for him or her to find a partner, willing to feel it is right for him or her to find a partner and willing to feel it is fun for him or her to find a partner.

Lots of times the creature feels the same, or willing to feel the same. Hence a romance commenced and followed by series of dating procedures. As time goes by, people find that the creature they had rummaged through the crowd has a whole set of flaws that beyond their tolerance. Soon bickers and cold wars break out, the passion die off and their 'love' gone with the wind.

LOL. Laugh out loud again and again. Why do they call these relations as 'love'? When they set out to search for a partner their intention is to find one person who is willing the spend the time with them, do the right thing for them and have fun with them. People change, the partners can be fed up with spending time with you, they can do the right thing with other people and they got bored in this 'fun' capade. No all these things can be strictly considered as acts of benevolence or calls of duty, but not romantic love.

Let's go back to the first step of the simple procedure which I had proposed earlier. The usual first step is to be attracted by the appearance of the person. Some people may skip this step and jump into the humour part. This step is not a superficial move in the whole process because appearance attraction stems from our ancestry but the thing is many people stop at this step. Numerous websites advertising good-looking singles, screaming in written words 'I NEED A TRUE LOVE.' People flooding to these beautiful creatures but very soon they realise outward beauty fades faster than their hair dye. Again, interests lost and 'love' gone with the wind.

Abraham Maslow once stated sex is a basic need and mere sex is a direct outcome of physical attraction, mutual I hope. Therefore, let's simplify further, you just want sex to satisfy your flesh if your interest in a person halts at his or her looks. There are bound to be many people denying this, they can go on about how great the other person's personality is. But at the bottom of our heart we know that we stay on because their looks have not become exhaustive in your eyes.

If people successfully move on from the physical attraction stage to humour and inner characteristics, marriages of these people are very probable and are likely to succeed too. This is the very sample of romantic marriage.

People fail in relationship and marriages because their very initial intention of getting a relationship is not love and their ultimate goal of relationship is not marriage. If you started out to fish someone to just spend time with you how could you expect him or her to love you? Yes you may end up infatuated with that fellow but that fellow does not have an obligation to return the favour. Also when your final destination of a relationship is not marriage or anything like a marriage, then how in the name of all things wonderful your relationship turns out fine? Marriage needs great commitment, the foundation of marriage may still be love but the nature of carrying out love is utterly different from the times when you are dating. You do not want to get married in the end so your behaviours in the very beginning will not display the great responsibility that a marriage requires. The partners may not be verbally aware of this unwritten rule but they feel it and they react to it.

That explains why he or she suddenly cease to be jealous, clingy, talkative, sensitive or passionate. At the some point of the relationship their patience quota is used up and they are no longer satisfied with just helping you to spend your time or doing the right things for you. Many times they move on to another potential individual who may satisfy them longer and deeper. What an analogy for sex.

The silver lining here is you don't have to be overly dramatic about your relationship failure. The truth can be you learn to step into a relationship when you feel the strong affection for someone, instead of 'feeling it's time/right thing/fun' to do so.

God bless everyone of you.