A philosopher's undying love

You are the most important thing in my life, even more important than my PhD thesis.

There are more important things than you in this world, but I haven’t found any yet; I mean, it is logically possible that they are there…

How impossibly beautiful you are! Just like the round square!

You are my everything! (Depending on how you define “everything.” And also “my,” and “you.”)

I love you more than mere words can express. That’s a contradiction.

I mean, I love you more than mere words can express, where “love” refers to something which cannot be otherwise referred to.

If it is the case that I don’t love you, 1 plus 1 would equal 3. But 1 plus 1 is not equal to 3. Therefore it is the case that I love you.

God gave me free will to love you! That’s assuming that God is omnipotent, omni-benevolent, and there is no such possible world where there is no free will and is better than the actual world.

You are the most beautiful woman I have seen at this moment!

It cannot possibly be thought that it is not the case that I don't not love you.

If you clear all thoughts out of your head for a moment, you will experience the all-embracing love that is present in the universe. Actually that’s just me.

You know I love you. Loosely speaking. Heck, if Hume is right, we can’t even know the sun will rise tomorrow. Strictly speaking, you can’t know I love you…

…how do you even know that I exist, not simply as a figment as your imagination?

If you are a brain-in-a-vat, I want to be your vat.

You are like* the stars in the sky!
* similar in certain aspects, not necessarily more than one. Similarity in material composition would suffice.

I love you till the end of time! Ok, your time just ended.

I can’t live without you! Every time I am alone, I am actually “living”.

Resolu...

It's the new year, and it's time for new... What? It's not new year yet? Oh right, it's only Christmas. Well, that means there's still time to procrastinate on making any new resolutions. 4 more days to be precise. Hmm... I wonder if I made any resolution about procrastination for year 2008. Probably I think--procrastination is practically on everyone's lists of resolutions. Well then, if so, I am only just trying to keep to my resolution.

Evenings

When I was young, my modes of entertainment were precious and few. My parents didn't believe in buying one of those gaming consoles for me, thinking it would distract me from studying, nor do they like me reading too many story books, for the same reason. And I didn't have many toys, thinking they are a waste of money; nor do I watch TV, because it is simply a waste of time.

My parents would be both out working in those days, and I wasn't exactly on the best of terms with my sister back then. Thinking back, I wonder how I survived the boredom that must pervade my childhood.

I do remember one bit of entertainment I had. In the evenings, just before the light starts to fade into the yellow color of sunset, I would curl up in this wooden reclining arm chair, listening to a Walkman. Back then, I have this earphones that were really huge; they look like ear muffs, and they encase my ears completely like two shields. Because of their design, I can blast the music as loud as I want, and yet no one else can hear it at all. They also render me completely unable to hear anything other than the music.

With the fading light, and the loud music in my ears, it would feel as though I am completely in a world of my own, cut off from anything outside. For hours, I would just lie in the chair, watching the light slowly changing from white to yellow, to orangish-red, and finally to complete darkness. And through it all, I can see the shadows from the windows slowly lengthening, creeping across the floor tiles so stealthily as though trying hard not be noticed.

It is unbelievably serene. It is also unbelievably lonely.

Then before the light failed completely, there will be the sounds of the lock rattling, signaling either my mum, or my dad coming back from work. And I would run and open the door for them.

Love thy neighbours?

I have bastard neighbours.

Strictly speaking, I don't know whether they are considered my neighbours since they live, respectively, above and below me. Let us call them Upper and Lower.

Upper is a family with kids and old folks. In the morning, around 6am, one of them would get up to pound chili. Apparently they eat chili everyday, and they can't just simply grind it. They have to pound the hell of them it, and the sleep out of everyone in my house.

And they must have belonged to some ancient, mystical clan that dictates that all pounding have to be done on the ground itself, without any paddings, or they will incur the wrath of some great earth spirit. As such, we get to experience the full surround sound of the rhythmic pounding every single day for a few months. Until I shouted at them to shut the hell up.

At 7am, when their kid wakes up from all the pounding, he will decide that he wants pay back for the noise. But most curiously, the payback is done to us. He would ride on his fake car, which sounds like a ton, and go careening across his flat. Now the sound experience is even better. We can actually trace the car with our eyes as the rumble of the car approaches, until it circles our heads for a brief respite, then it would zoom off again to another corner of his flat. His parents, and grandparents are doing a fabulous job of teaching the kid sensitivity; he will probably grow up to be a jerk, not unlike his parents and grandparents.

And of course, why stop at disturbing people with noises, when you can actually irritate them with smell? One of them Upper, I have no idea which, loves smoking. And he loves smoking at the window directly above mine. Probably because if he smokes in-house, he will kill the kid which shows so much promise of growing up into a jerk and he doesn't want that, he tries to kill me instead with his second hand smoke; he blows them out of his window, and without fail, the wind blows them into mine.

And since I have the habit of sleeping with my door closed, the smoke stays inside while I sleep, until I wake up half-choking over the smoke to shut the windows. Then I have to open my door to air the room, which is impossible since the windows are shut and there's no air circulation. So I have to wait for him to finish his stick, before opening the windows again.

Every night, I have to do that. Sometimes at 1am, sometimes at 3am, but without fail, 5am. And people wonder why I always look like I didn't get enough sleep. He doesn't only smoke at night though, it is just that I have the sense to stay out of the house in the day most of the time.

Just when you thought that only Uppers can affect you, since they can do things to your ceiling which is their floor, while Belows can't do anything to their ceiling which is my floor, the Belows began their smell attack. Interestingly, even though cigarette smoke only travels downwards due to their density, incense smoke is light enough to float up the air. Every friday, we are fumigated, unwillingly, with some intensely pungent incense and treated to an un-interrupted stream of ringing experience for exactly an hour. It was close all the windows, or die. Apparently, it must be some rites to send people like us on the way.

I don't want to live here anymore. Not with my bastard neighbours, and the super ulu-ness of the place. I hate it.

Can you differentiate all these?

You think you are wrong, but if you are wrong, then you are right.
You think you are wrong, and if you are wrong, then you are right.

You think you are wrong, and if you are right, then you are wrong.
You think you are wrong, but if you are right, then you are wrong.

You think you are wrong, but if you are right, then you are right.

RAM

I upgraded my laptop RAM today. Earlier on, I had gone to the NUS co-op to check out how much they are selling the RAM for. The price they quoted was 99 bucks for 2Gb, and 50 bucks for 1Gb.

Today I went down to Simlim, and guess how much I bought my 2Gb Ram for? Only 34bucks! And it's the same brand. I'll never trust NUS's prices again. Complete rip-off.