selfish

Because we are all humans, we are born with some innate capacity to take care of ourselves, strictly speaking, oneself, and this goes beyond the need to feed and clothe oneself. We are perhaps more selfish than we would ever want to admit to ourselves, but it is also this selfishness that allow us to survive at all.

The prerequisite of survival is selfishness: cooperation may be an excellent way of improving our lives, or even chances of long term survival, but without selfishness, we cant even talk about cooperation, not when cooperation is tolerated ultimately for the condition of personal survival. (if personal survival is not guaranteed most of the time, then no one would ever cooperate.)

Thus it is no surprise that language has evolved around this concept of selfishness, and came up with many defensive phrases. Phrases like "I told you so", "I knew that would happen", "You should have" etc. are actually defensive, with the intent of putting the spotlight on the other person, shifting the blame away from oneself.

While on the receiving end, such phrases sound especially offensive and annoying, they sound equally irritating to others who are merely observing the exchange, for subconsciously, they recognise the human's baser instinct to be defensive and shift blame away from oneself, and from a community point of view, any egoistic maneuvers are to be condemned.

Hence there developed an interesting relationship between self and society, a paradox if Kant were alive to say it: the self wants to, needs to in fact, be selfish, but the society frowns upon such acts; the society however, is not any abstract entity overlooking the whole mankind, but made up of countless other selves who themselves want to and need to be selfish.

In short: while we all need to be selfish, others dont like us to be, even though they need to be selfish as well.

tag

I just realised that I could tag some people to do the dumb thing I did in the previous post. And because I know it would annoy my friends to be tagged (some of them particularly), I hereby tag dominic, yx, yongcen, wei yee, peckleng. hehee.

dunno whats this is called.

Because I have been tagged by neville, and there isnt really anything interesting that I could do...

favourites
favourite colour: blue
favourite food: petai (google for it if you never heard of this)
favourite song: 重生
favourite movie: The Matrix Trilogy
favourite sport: Cycling? Not very sporty type.
favourite day of the week: Wednesday, cos the week is still young.
favourite season: Where? What??
favourite ice-cream: Chocolate or Vanilla.

currents
current mood: Dreamy
current taste: not very high
current clothes: singlet and shorts
current deskstop: Some photo of some mountain dominic sent me.
current time: 10.13pm
current surroundings: cool air and quietness.
current annoyances: That I cant think of any politically correct annoyances to pen down.
current thoughts: Of someone.

firsts
first best friend: Guanghock.
first crush: Crush, not loves or likes rite? A girl call Rachel.
first movie: How I know?
first lie: How I know?
first music: How I know? Oh wait I know. Its either the "10 little Indians", or the "Dang Bing Ge" (Be soldier song)

lasts
last cigarette: Never had one.
last alcoholic drink: At weixin's bday party. Drank a cup of mixed beer as forfeit.
last car ride: Last Friday, a colleague drove us to lunch.
last crush: Crush, not loves or likes rite? A girl call Rachel.
last movie: X men 3.
last phone call: Today, just now. Called jiayong.
last cd played: Thats a compilation (illegal) of mp3s which I play almost every night when I am sleeping. (yes, when, not prior to). Incidentally it does have a name to it... wait i go check. .. oh ya... "Nice songs". Not overly inventive huh.

have you ever
have you ever dated your best friend: Go out with best friend? Guy? Not counted as date rite? Gal? But my best friends are always guys leh. So no I guess.
have you ever broken the law: uh probably. In Singapore, every person breaks the law inevitably (read: too many laws).
have you ever been arrested: nope
have you ever skinny-dipped: nope
have you ever been on tv: ya, when I was very young.
have you ever kissed someone you don't know: nope

5 things you are wearing: specs, singlet, shorts and underwear la. lol. thats 4, not 5.
4 things you did today: Walked about Cityhall area, played arcade, thought about someone, talked to some people.
3 things you can hear right now: the TV outside, the mp3 on my pc, the insects outside.
1 thing you do when you are bored: play online games.

Independence

Independence is not a disposition to refuse help.
It is a character trait that prefers doing things by oneself if it is within one's means. Refusing help when things are beyond one's means, or would take an improportionately immense work to do as compared to being helped, is not independence, but mistaking that for it.

Happiness

Because we are only humans, we could never experience never ending happiness: not because there isnt such a thing, but because human capacity is such that any pleasure or happiness goes into lull after numerous repetition - we get bored. We probably can get used to anything, and when we do, even the ultimate pleasure at one point of time for you can seem to pale.

That is why the smart person never eats his favorite food for every meal, everyday.

There is no such thing as an ever ascending slope of happiness. To move up, you must be down first; to continuously ascend, you must continuously descend. The slope of happiness is infinite only for those who know how to recycle the same incline. Those who hope for eternal ascension into happiness have the inevitable fate of falling off the slope at the far end, and being never able to pick themselves up.

There aint any sage who leads an ascetic existence and being happy at all times. If there is such a being, he definitely isnt human. The happiest person alive is the one who know when to pull himself down the slope, and ascend it again - descending fast, and prolonging the ascend.

There is no happiness without sadness, and no sadness without happiness. If you fall off the slope, and refuse to ascend for fear of falling again, then that past happiness will always serve as the earmark for your eternal depression: how unhappy you are is measured by the distance you are away from that highest point of happiness.

On the other hand, if you are continuedly ascending most of the time, then the much treaded point of depression will be the point against which your happiness is constantly being measured.

It is much easier to stay unhappy, than to continuedly ascend, but nonetheless, continued descent seem pretty much impossible too.

My job

Almost the last few days I will be working at this company, so I'm going to do a review of what I have been up to there. This goes back to a few weeks ago when a classmate of mine called me to offer me this "office job". What do I do there? "Writing checks mostly." Well, that sounded pretty easy, so I took it up there and then.

Day one reporting at the workplace in jurong west, which is pretty darn near my house, just half an hour away. Stepped into the office, and was immediately ushered into a smaller office room.



The only office room in the whole office.

I was told that is to be my seat, and I just have to wait a little while for them to come tell me what to do. As I sat there alone, in the room all to myself, looking out at the busy staff running about outside my office, all having a tiny desk to themselves with not even a visible partition anywhere, it dawned onto me suddenly exactly what kind of job I was hired into.

The Managing Director of this local branch of the International human resource agency Ade*co.



There can be no mistake about this: I have the only room in the whole office, and I am to write checks for my employees. This is a fabulous job for an undergraduate, even if its a temporary job!

A few days passed, and I settled nicely into the job of TMD (Temporary Managing Director, not tamade) of Ade*co. I should explain my job scope in more details: since this is no ordinary organisation, being a human resource agency and all, the admin staff all handle human resource instead of paperwork, and naturally the MD will have to handle the paperwork instead of human resource as is the norm.

So everyday, this MD shreds the papers which need shredding,



photostat the papers which need photostating,


chop my approval on documents which need chopping,



hold numerous meetings with my staff about increasing productivity in the office,



(my staff)

and write checks for the thousand over employees working under me (I really do write the checks! I just do not sign them. My manager does that instead. My signature is ugly anyway. lol)

Because my office is situated nicely beside the door,



it seems that it is ideal for checking on staff who are late for work, or leaving too early before dismissal. And because it is a human resource agency, there are frequently strangers coming into the office for god knows what reason. And the minute they stepped into the office, to the right, they can see the open door to my very own office, and a suave and very capable-looking Managing Director looking at them straight in the eye, while busy shredding papers.

It gives them the shivers I know; I have that effect, not only on girls.

Once

We only have this life Once;
this youth, Once.
Live it to the fullest!
take risks; live dangerously.

Don't complain about life being boring,
or constantly bad.
If you want happiness,
go all out and enjoy yourself!
Do everything with passion,
with all your heart!

Don't be afraid to get angry,
don't be afraid to cry.
Lie if you want,
laugh whenever!
Hate your enemies openly,
Love your friends outwardly.

Love a girl with all your heart,
and if she doesnt love you,
continue loving her passionately
silently.
If you can,
Love another,
then another
and another.

Go for your dreams,
Be ambitious,
and if you fall short,
don't settle for that yet;
Make another dream!

Nothing Is Impossible
Moderation is Mediocrity

Just

I love waking to the feel of cold wind curling at my feet, the wind steadily building up in strength as it howls through my window, even if I have to wake up at 7am and shut all the windows for fear of rain.

And I love waking again to the sound of heavy rain pelting my windows in a crazy rhythm, as though in a hurry to be somewhere else; and sure enough, gone all too soon.

Then there is the coolness in the air after the wind and the rain, pressing lightly on my eyelids and wouldnt let them open. But its too nice a weather to sleep through, and so I lay there all curled up in the cold, just relaxing and enjoying.

So I had a sudden call to work today, but that doesnt spoil anything. Off to work now, but hey, nice weather. ^^

Desperation

When you see me blogging, either of the two things must have happened: 1. I got such fantastic inspiration to blog which overwhelms everything I have been doing at the moment and forces me to blog immediately, or 2. the game servers are down. In this case, it is the latter reason which caused me to blog. Maybe we should all be grateful to the lousy servers that we are able to see any new posts on my blog at all.

But why not say, in a more sympathetic manner (to myself), that this post is born out of a combination of both reasons. Maybe it weighs heavily on the latter reason, but hey, nothing is ever fair and equal in this world.

Anyhow, let us talk about something that has been on our minds for the longest time ever: relationships. Admit it: ever since primary school, you have been wondering about getting a gf/bf, peering at potential targets and wondering about secret suitors. Or at least, I have been. It all seems to make a lot of sense, even back then. You ought to get a gf/bf, you ought to have some form of courtship, be nice to her/him, get married, have kids, argue with your wife/husband every now and then, beat the kids a bit, etc etc., then teach the same thing to your kids.

It appears to come easily: just because we are "supposed" to love someone, we can do so. I keep searching within me, the "special feeling" for someone. In primary school, that comes easily, wonders upon wonders. It just took a sentence, from my mum no less (who was jesting): "you like that girl rite?" and bam, I knew I was in love, with someone I barely noticed up until that point my mum asked that question. This elusive "special feeling" apparently can be called up by a simple sentence like that.

Well, the feeling didnt last long, not that I remember much of what happened when I was that young. Nor did anything happpen between me and that girl. Goodness! I couldnt even remember her name. heh.

But after that (and we are skipping on ahead to my secondary school days), I got more serious about relationships. Serious meaning I still remember what I did and felt. lol. But thats a story for another day and another post, as is my "love" in jc, and my love in uni.

The weird thing about all these, including the primary school period, is that we seem to have this noose around our necks, dragging us up on tiptoes, tottering everywhere looking for our elusive other halves who are supposed to "complete" us. And after some searching, we found someone whom we can probably tolerate pretty well for some time, and we latched on to him/him like a lifesaver, in a bid to let that noose let up at least a little.

And it did; it is as though the promise of a future spouse tricked the noose into relaxing its hold on us: we can now breathe a little easier, and walk more normally, albeit carefully.

Should the supposed "other half" leave for some reason, immediately our breathing hasten, the noose tightens, and we go on tiptoes again, driven again on this endless search.

But why are we doing this? What is this noose exactly? If it is just simply societal pressure, why does it seem so natural to obey it? The Collectivists would say that it is precisely because it is social, that it seems normal, but we aren't doing sociology here, so they can take a hike.

Well, this post is getting too lengthy as it is. I will continue this (might!), in the next post. Until then, stay tuned!

Individualism

"The man who can really stand alone in the world, only taking counsel from his own conscience--that man is a hero..." - Soren Kierkegaard.