26 August 2012
In Sanskrit there is a word called Maya, which is usually understood as meaning illusion. The whole concept of distinction between self and the world can be considered as Maya.In all the religions I know of, believers are all called to look beyond appearances. Outward manifestations are not a true reflection of what is inside. Most of the time, there is a deeper meaning in every thing. What is important is that we are not fooled by the illusions. We must recognize the false images for what they are.
We can call it Maya, or illusions, or false images. The fact is, being able to look past the surface is no mean feat. Does being able to transcend these illusions mean throwing away the concept of beauty? How can I be free from Maya if I am able to distinguish between a pretty lass and a plain Jane? Societal conditioning has made the concept of beauty so prevalent that it has become my reality. The constant bombardment of the idea of elegance from the media and peers makes the quest of being free of judging an impossible one.
But what if beauty was true? Then that means that it is true that some people look better than others, and will be preferred over others. No matter how superficial this sounds, the statement is true in this context. Appearances play a part when choosing companions. I mean, we can claim that we choose our partners for their personality and good character. But if you were to be honest with yourself, would you choose someone whose was so terribly ugly, his looks could (possibly) kill?
From a psychological point of view, what we look for in others is a capacity for empathy. The more a person can understand us and relate to us, the better the person can complement you. Of course, relationships work best when the same is true for vice versa. In this sense, a soul mate would be someone who shares perfect empathy with you. Surprisingly, this line of thinking does not demand that your soul mate be of the opposite gender. I find it worth giving some thought to the idea that if I could understand myself perfectly, I would have no need for a soul mate. In a sense, I would be complete on my own.
If my soul mate turned out to be an abhorrent freak, would I still accept her? Hard to say.
We live in this world of illusions, so what we perceive are therefore illusions. How can I be able to move past this fallacy and on to the true reality, when I am living within this world of images? The images are so real to me, and have been real to me since young. How can I appreciate beauty and at the same time, realise that beauty is an illusion? It stinks to high almighty of contradiction.
I am afraid.
I am afraid of changing.
I am afraid that if I let go of all my preconceptions, I will lose myself.
I will not be me anymore.
It seems I have found the problem.
11 August 2012
Truism: Every action has a consequence.It seems silly to write this out, since everybody should already know this. Cause and effect. We all experienced this in our daily lives, and studied the concept formally in science. We think we know about this. Do we?
There is a zen quote that goes like this.
To know and not do is not yet to know.
We may think we know of this particular truism. However, do we apply it? I admit, I never did practice this actively until recently. It is a constant task to remind myself throughout the day. In the past, staying up late for supper or playing video games was normal. I would suffer for it the next day, though. I would either end up being lethargic the whole day, or sleep through most of it. The most surprising part about this is that I would keep repeating this cycle without any thought of changing it. Why?
When I have an appointment with others, do I dally around until the last possible moment before leaving the house? Do I occupy myself with little minute tasks and then rush out, only to find that I have missed my bus, or caught in a jam? Every action has a consequence. I chose to take my time instead of being early.
Or take the example of surfing the net - browsing through online tabloids, social platforms or the "soul-consuming" 9gag. After I am done browsing, I look at the clock and wonder, where did all the hours disappear to? The time I could have spent on other matters has been sacrificed to my own indulgences. And I was not forced in any way.
That is the problem, you see?
We are not forced to do anything. We are fortunate enough to be able to choose what we want to do. And so, what do we do? We failed. We have failed to realize how our actions have consequences. We think we know. But honestly, we do not. How can we know, if we choose to act without having the end in mind? We do not bother with consequences. We think it is normal to procrastinate. Do things later. In the end, we push our schedules back. And back. And farther back. We do this passively, without realizing the problem.
We need to recognize that active awareness is crucial in changing our lifestyle. If I drink too much tonight, I will spend the whole of the next day nursing a hangover. If I do not prepare for a project now, I will end up cramming it later. Simple, fundamental examples. Yet there is real risk of falling into these traps if we do not regularly remind ourselves of this "common" knowledge.
Only then can we say that we know - Every action has a consequence.
I just had to get that out.
To emphasize to myself that I do what I do because I want to change my life.
04 August 2012
One of the few times I actually play a game nowadays, and I end up playing throughout the whole of last night. And completing the entire game. On Hardened difficulty.My cousin stayed over at my house last night. I was thinking that perhaps we could wake up early this morning to go train together at the park. Silly me. We ended up playing Call of Duty: World at War on co-operative mode.
There were some clips and scenes that depicted the harshness and cruelty of war. And although some times war is glorified and glamorized in the media or movies, do not be mistaken - War is ugly. It is unforgiving. Every soldier in the battlefield has his own life story to share. Every person has a future, that is, until it is cut short by war.
In my honest opinion, the chances of war in this time and age is pretty low as to compared to the previous century. This is mainly due to globalization, thus allowing citizens of any one country to travel quickly and conveniently to cities around the world. This leads to greater inter-national interaction among ordinary people, instead of such ties being only restricted to governments.
How can one, who has friends in a particular country, bear to attack that said country? To put it in more manageable terms, war is like your boss telling you to burn down your friend's house, and kill or arrest all the residents inside. I find such orders quite hard stomach.
From a sociological point of view, the root cause of war is always an overwhelming sense of nationalism. (Or for smaller groups - such as in a civil war - it would be patriotism to their particular organization.) Extreme nationalism leads to thinking in the terms of mine, mine, mine and yours, yours, yours. It encourages distinction and breeds separateness. Once this belief becomes ingrained deep enough, you no longer care what happens to the other party: simply because he is different from you - he is the enemy.
Patriotism is not something to be proud of. Every time there is a war, whether the World Wars, Korean War, Vietnam War, or even the recent war in Iraq, you can observe how important patriotism is in convincing people the need for war. In the world today, the countries that might actually cause a war are the countries which still have strong nationalistic pride (and an unhealthy military capacity). North Korea and China are prime candidates, although China is less likely to engage in direct confrontation because China is already globalized and well-connected with most of the world.
We need to drop nationalism. We need to unite the world under one single governing body. No, wait, that is not enough. We still need to stop drawing differences because of lines on the map. We need to learn to recognize that we are mostly the same. (I know some people may actually deserve to shot in battle - maybe even out of battle - but the majority of people on both sides have ordinary lives and families to return to.) Only when we learn that we are all not so different, will war become obsolete and a thing of the past.
I am glad for globalization. It facilitates meeting different people from all over the world. It reinforces the truth that people everywhere think and feel, like us. It re-humanizes us. Although globalization also gives rise for opportunities to develop hate for foreigners, I believe that these cases are few and far between compared to the magnitude of camaraderie shared among the plenty other examples.