Ramifications

Intelligience in slime mould?!

2012-02-11T21:47:00.000-08:00

In 2000, Japanese scientist Toshiyuki Nakagaki discovered that slime mould could organise itself into the most efficient possible shape in a maze (constructed on a plate of agar) and grow pseudopodia (tube-like structures) in order to get to two sources of food on either side of the maze. Mind-fucking stuff!

On Hominin evolution and technological progression

2012-02-11T19:45:00.000-08:00

We begin with technological progression. Bipedalism allowed early hominin to carry an object to maintain a physical distance between them and predators. This had more survival value than fearsome canine teeth or great speed of foot.

2.5ma ago, Hominins then discovered the use of stone tools. This allowed Hominins the ability to engage in large animal scavenging.

2ma ago, the toolmakers begun to hunt prime adult animals. After trotting after animals for a sustained period of time, hominins could then tire it out and eventually earn themselves a meal. This was accompanied with a marked increase in brain size.

1.5ma ago, the hand axe was invented. 200,000-300,000 years ago, modern levels of brain size had been reached.

Fire was also controlled and projectile points could be hardened. This also allowed for hominins (physiologically tropical) to move to cold regions and they also started using animal skins for clothing. Fire also allowed for cooking. Cooked food requires less chewing and this converted middle-Pleistocene faces into its 'modern' form slowly over time.

String-based techniques for game acquisition meant that it was no longer essential to have the levels of muscular and skeletal robustness of previous hominin forms. String-based techniques also gave hominins the ability to catch more game much easier.

A cute animation about Hilbert's hotel

2012-02-10T20:56:00.000-08:00

Hilbert's "Infinity hotel"

2012-02-09T17:00:00.000-08:00

I am loving this: Amanda Boyle's short film Hotel Infinity concerns a hotel with an infinite number of rooms. Its slogan is "We're always full, but we always have room for you."

Guffaw guffaw!

Now let's get onto the serious stuff:
1) In order to check a new guest into the infinity hotel, you need to get the guest in room 1 to move into room 2 and room 2 into room 3 and so on. Then you will free up one room in front for the new guest. You cannot check in the new guest into the last room because there is no last room and every room is already occupied.

Infinity + 1 = infinity

2) In order to check an infinite amount of new guests into the hotels, you need to move all existing guests to the room which is double the room number they have already (ie the person in room 4 moves to room 8; the person in room n moves to room 2n). The first person in the newly-arrived group gets room 1; the nth person gets room 2n-1. In this way, an infinite number of odd-numbered rooms get freed up.

Infinity + Infinity = Infinity

3) If an infinite amount of guests leave the next morning, how many guests would be left? The answer is interesting. It could be that any real numbers of guests stayed behind while the infinite rest checked out or it could be that all the guests checked out.

Infinity - Infinity = Any real number (1,2,3 etc) OR 0

Unwin's equation for the existence of God

2012-02-08T19:51:00.000-08:00

P(before) starts off with 50-50 maximum ignorance -> I argue that this 50-50 divide is inaccurate since because there are so many "Gods". Shouldn’t the 50% for the existence of Gods then be divided up equally among all possible Gods?

Next I go on to analyse the Divine indicator scale and I argue that none of these indicators can provide proof of God.

1 existence of moral good -> “moral” good can be explained via CBA, Game theory and a moral actions as a behavioral evolutionary tool
2 existence of moral evil -> evil actions exist because “cheating” is a behavioral evolutionary tool. There are also a limitations of resources, dysfunctional pyschological states and power differentials.
3 existence of natural evil (disasters) -> What?! All of these are naturally occurring!
4 existence of natural and unnatural miracles -> Natural miracles are very rare and occur because of probability/ laws of physics and unnatural miracles have never been documented/ proven.
6 religious experiences -> These can be easily explained by theory of mind and/or artificialism etc

I was hoping for a more convincing equation.

And yes, since we are here. Let's talk about Pascal's wager. A fundamental flaw is that there are sooo many possible Gods! By following one God, I would be improving my probability for a comfortable afterlife but not by much. And then we are all subject to a very high probrablity of having chosen the wrong God to believe in. And if I just followed a religion just so I would not be punished, wouldn't an all-knowing God find out? And wouldn't he/she punish me accordingly?

Important terms and concepts about abiogenesis

2012-02-07T19:55:00.002-08:00

Laboratory tests have shown Atmosphere of early earth + basic elements (charged with energy i.e lightning) -> amino acids ( building blocks of life)

Carbon linked in many interesting ways to other elements.

Life was formed within 1st billion years.

Primitive lipids can naturally form cell-protecting membranes.

RNA was single-stranded (compared to double helix of DNA), stored communicative information and could replicate.

Life progressed by methods of organisation.

Lifeforms used energy from their surroundings to make self-copies that were prone to change due to the instability of the replicating process.

This allowed for adaptation which was necessary for evolution.

Important terms and concepts about evolution

2012-02-07T18:01:00.004-08:00

Designed VS Designoid
Natural (hindsight) VS Artificial (foresight) selection
Convergent evolutionary trends
Exaptation
Evolutionary branching bush VS 'ladder progression'
Transitional characteristics VS transitional animals (old-dated concept)

The "missing links"

2012-02-01T01:05:00.001-08:00

Migration of Homo Sapiens
Archaeopteryx: link between dinosaurs and modern birds
Tiktaalik fish: link between fishes and land-dwelling animals
Ida: link between higher primates and lower primates
Australopithecus
Homo Habilis
Homo Ergaster
Homo Erectus

On why I am not a serf of authority and nation

2012-01-31T18:20:00.001-08:00

Every man possesses free will as a self-evident self-owner and is free to do whatever he/she wishes so long as their actions do not impinge upon the freedom of another.

No man knows what is best for any other man, let alone everyone.

Humans are merely fortunate primates with a powerful evolutionary tool; we do not own the earth or its creatures and cosmic functionality does not revolve around us.

We do not matter and anyone who thinks otherwise about themselves is self-deluded with pride and egocentrism.

Faith is a leap of logic and rationality and therefore lack of. Logic and rationality is bounded but it is the best tool that we have in order to reach our true potential.

We do not owe any allegiance to any authority or nation; we only owe loving actions to each other on a humanistic level.

Multiverse up to 10th dimension :)

2012-01-21T03:06:00.001-08:00

Finally! I understand up to the 10th dimension and can explain (as best as I can in my own words) and illustrate with diagrams!

0: a single point
1: length
2: four directional movement from a point
3: length, height and depth
4: length, height, depth and duration (3 dimension universe at time x -> 3 dimension universe at time x +1)
5: different 4 dimensional universes from a single 3 dimensional point
6: an infinite universe (infinite 4 dimensional universes from a single 3 dimensional point)
7: connection from one infinite universe to another
8: infinite deviations from a connection between one infinite universe to another
9: connection from one infinite deviation to another
10: infinite interactions between infinite deviations to form a single point of infinite (connections, deviations and interactions between deviations)

Now onto 11th...which requires me to understand string theory...which I will get to later :)

Jesse Bering- The God instinct

2012-01-15T21:46:00.000-08:00

Some new things that I have learned with regard to this topic from an evolutionary-psychological point of analysis.

I really like Nicholas Humprey's term “society of selves” where we are all but singular bubble of consciousness pressed up against each other essentially inviolate. This reminds me of Dawa's phrase 'familiar strangers'.

More readings on the ‘Theory of mind’ which I first came into contact with by browsing Dawkins.

I seek to find answers on why God and God-related phenomenon such as purpose of life questions are still so seductive and recalcitrant in the 'todays of modern science.'
One interesting example that Bering brought up is the recrded fact that even Helen Keller (uninfluenced by socialization) instinctively asked herself existentialist questions.

The following are the reasons on why God and God-related phenomenon such as purpose of life questions are still so seductive and recalcitrant in the 'todays of modern science.'

1) Piaget’s theory of cognitive development of ‘artificialism’ where children see asoecrs and features of the natural world as existing solely to solve human problems or at least meant for human use never go away; instead they continue cropping up in our mental representations in very subtle ways.

2) We cannot help but apply the ‘intentional stance’ when reasoning about others and events. Natural event which happens by chance is taken as a sign. We try to get into God’s head to explain the unknown. We are more likely to search for meaning whenever others’ behaviors violate our expectations. Autistic individuals have difficult conceptualizing about a God.

3) Egocentrism: Each of us is soundly convinced that God shares our opinions and points of view and thus he would be motivated to help us by giving us hints here and there. That we are more than just animals because we have a brain (our evolutionary tool) which allows us to think that we are not. This coincides with our egocentric approach to the material world and even cosmology (astrology for example with its assumption that the planetary movements have a connection to the mundane events in our lives. It is as if the cosmos "owed us a living.")

4) Death: we cannot imagine it because we have not experienced it. So we use everyday terms and experiences to describe death. We also have person permanence; the idea that someone you know but are not currently seeing is off somewhere doing something. Our language and thoughts about Death are from our experiences while being alive. How then can we not conceptualise of an afterlife? In addition, the theory of an afterlife exists to assuage us about what would otherwise be the crippling anxiety about the ego’s inexistence.

5) Life as fair: searching for fairness in life presupposes an intelligent, morally concerned agent. When it comes to unexpected heartache and tragedy, we crave for meaning. When there is no obvious human agent to blame, we see the hand of God: a ‘God of Gaps’. This is a result of our evolutionary-designed tendency to problem solve. Even when we were occasionally right, it is still a lot better than never attempting to understand and thus solve the problem.

6) God as adaptive illusion: we humans have complex social emotions such as shame and pride which are inhibitory in nature. In laboratory experiments, participants are more likely to act more prosocially (cheat) when cues in the environment suggest that they are being observed. If and when others see us 'cheating'. they become carriers of strategic information and if they tell, we may be punished sooner or later. Other child development studies have shown that as soon as children start talking, tattling to authority figures is rampant and in contras, tootling is vitrually unheard of. This would explain why gossiping has replaced grooming in humans since it is vital to collect strategic information, make adaptive decisions, sew facts and lis ito other's heads that would spread and serve our own selfish interests. But why would we be concerned of negative gossip and being caught cheating? Not cheating is beneficial to us as cheaters are punished, possibly ostracised. Non-cheaters would stand a higher chance of belonging to a larger social group which offered increased protection against threats. In all religions, we then see a similarity in which the central God possesses a deep knowing of people- of thier souls and hearts. This is a common feature of invasive individuation.

All the above features are building blocks upon which transcend religion and cuts acrss almost every single human society. Religion then adapts and comprises the specific content of belief, not what drives belief itself. Thus the famous saying 'If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."

Kafka- Investigations of a dog

2011-10-23T21:39:00.000-07:00

Reading this on the way to the land of its author, I was struck by the apparent absurdity of the way in which the dog investigates, by how its rationality is bounded, by how it tries nobly but in vain to probe the meaning behind apparent truths by its quasi-scientific and rational methods. I witness the turmoil of the mind of the dog and how it embarks upon an interestingly (similar to Buddha's) path to reach a closer understanding of the truth.

Also, I am yet agian confornted by the quiet and content majority who are content to leave these important and seemingly unimportant questions unanswered.

Ultimately futile?...maybe.

Frustrating and lonely?...Yes.

Fruitful?....Undoubtedly Yes.

Relooking at "The Matrix"

2011-10-01T11:17:00.000-07:00

Socratic wisdom
Gnostic Christainity
Mechanical society
Passive consumerism
Hyper Reality
subject VS object
Ubermensch
The "experience machine"
Free will VS fate VS Determinism
Divine love VS humanistic love
The Eternal Return

Putting yourself into perspective

2011-10-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

The next time you feel self-absorbed and all high and mighty about yourself, remember this: Our earth is 4.6 billion years old, bacterium appear 3.5 billion years old, 570 million years ago marine life develop, 5 million years ago the first ape-men appear, common ancestor of modern humans in Africa lived 100 thousand years ago, first recorded human history is 6000 years old...there you go. You are but a molecule of dust among the specks of dust that make up all that we know.

The Happy among us

2011-10-01T09:52:00.000-07:00

The more you know, the more you will know that everything is nothing and nothing is everything.

You will then know that you hold no importance over others and you will care less about external validation and care more for internal happiness.
And those who do not care for you will try to change you because they do not understand why and how you can be happy when you are not successful by their standards.

For they are angered at your self-sufficiency for you truly treat yourself as special, as above their games which is something that they cannot do. So they will scorn you and trip you by using their tools of domination. But they can never take away your true knowledge and happiness.

Do not hate them. Instead, understand them.

And when you are truly unburdened by humanly ties and negatives, try to guide them to be self-sufficient in their route to happiness too

Mediocrity

2011-09-06T00:15:00.000-07:00

A striking consequence of the new picture of the world is that there should be an infinity of regions with histories absolutely identical to ours. That's right, scores of your duplicates are now reading copies of this article. They live on planets exactly like Earth, with all its mountains, cities, trees, and butterflies. There should also be regions where histories are somewhat different from ours, with all possible variations. For example, some readers will be pleased to know that there are infinitely many O-regions where Al Gore is the President of the United States.

In this astonishing world view, our Earth and our civilization are anything but unique. Instead, countless identical civilizations are scattered across the infinite expanse of the cosmos. With humankind reduced to absolute cosmic insignificance, our descent from the center of the world, a process begun by Copernicus, is now complete.

THE PRINCIPLE OF MEDIOCRIY
By Alexander Vilenkin

We must strive to intellectually and emotionally evolve

2011-08-18T20:07:00.000-07:00

The Buddha was sitting under a tree talking to his disciples when a man came and spit on his face. He wiped it off, and he asked the man, “What next? What do you want to say next?” The man was a little puzzled because he himself never expected that when you spit on somebody’s face, he will ask, “What next?” He had no such experience in his past. He had insulted people and they had become angry and they had reacted. Or if they were cowards and weaklings, they had smiled, trying to bribe the man. But Buddha was like neither, he was not angry nor in any way offended, nor in any way cowardly. But just matter-of-factly he said, “What next?” There was no reaction on his part.

Buddha’s disciples became angry, they reacted. His closest disciple, Ananda, said, “This is too much, and we cannot tolerate it. He has to be punished for it. Otherwise everybody will start doing things like this.”

Buddha said, “You keep silent. He has not offended me, but you are offending me. He is new, a stranger. He must have heard from people something about me, that this man is an atheist, a dangerous man who is throwing people off their track, a revolutionary, a corrupter. And he may have formed some idea, a notion of me. He has not spit on me, he has spit on his notion. He has spit on his idea of me because he does not know me at all, so how can he spit on me?

“If you think on it deeply,” Buddha said, “he has spit on his own mind. I am not part of it, and I can see that this poor man must have something else to say because this is a way of saying something. Spitting is a way of saying something. There are moments when you feel that language is impotent: in deep love, in intense anger, in hate, in prayer. There are intense moments when language is impotent. Then you have to do something. When you are angry, intensely angry, you hit the person, you spit on him, you are saying something. I can understand him. He must have something more to say, that’s why I’m asking, “What next?”

The man was even more puzzled! And Buddha said to his disciples, “I am more offended by you because you know me, and you have lived for years with me, and still you react.”

Puzzled, confused, the man returned home. He could not sleep the whole night. When you see a Buddha, it is difficult, impossible to sleep again the way you used to sleep before. Again and again he was haunted by the experience. He could not explain it to himself, what had happened. He was trembling all over and perspiring. He had never come across such a man; he shattered his whole mind and his whole pattern, his whole past.

The next morning he was back there. He threw himself at Buddha’s feet. Buddha asked him again, “What next? This, too, is a way of saying something that cannot be said in language. When you come and touch my feet, you are saying something that cannot be said ordinarily, for which all words are a little narrow; it cannot be contained in them.” Buddha said, “Look, Ananda, this man is again here, he is saying something. This man is a man of deep emotions.”

The man looked at Buddha and said, “Forgive me for what I did yesterday.”

Buddha said, “Forgive? But I am not the same man to whom you did it. The Ganges goes on flowing, it is never the same Ganges again. Every man is a river. The man you spit upon is no longer here. I look just like him, but I am not the same, much has happened in these twenty-four hours! The river has flowed so much. So I cannot forgive you because I have no grudge against you.”

“And you also are new. I can see you are not the same man who came yesterday because that man was angry and he spit, whereas you are bowing at my feet, touching my feet. How can you be the same man? You are not the same man, so let us forget about it. Those two people, the man who spit and the man on whom he spit, both are no more. Come closer. Let us talk of something else.”

1. Nietzsche: Human, all too Human

2011-08-15T20:12:00.000-07:00

Man alone with himself

The one necessary thing. A person must have one or the other: either a disposition which is easygoing by nature, or else a disposition eased by art and knowledge.

Not too deep. People who comprehend a matter in all its depth seldom remain true to it forever. For they have brought its depth to the light; and then there is always much to see about it that is bad.

The infuriating thing about an individual way of living. People are always angry at anyone who chooses very individual standards for his life; because of the extraordinary treatment which that man grants to himself, they feel degraded, like ordinary beings.

Unwittingly noble. A man's behavior is unwittingly noble if he has grown accustomed never to want anything from men, and always to give to them.

Condition for being a hero. If a man wants to become a hero, the snake must first become a dragon; otherwise he is lacking his proper enemy.

Loyal to their convictions. The man who has a lot to do usually keeps his general views and opinions almost unchanged; as does each person who works in the service of an idea. He will never test the idea itself anymore; he no longer has time for that. Indeed, it is contrary to his interest even to think it possible to discuss it.

Unhappiness. The distinction that lies in being unhappy
(as if to feel happy were a sign of shallowness, lack of ambition, ordinariness) is so great that when someone says, "But how happy you must be" we usually protest.

Weak conscience. Men who talk about their importance for mankind have a weak conscience about their common bourgeois honesty in keeping contracts or promises.

After watching "Rise of the Planet of the Apes"

2011-08-14T06:31:00.001-07:00

Ah..it has been sometime since I have had a good show like this to trigger my philosophical thirst. First off let me state that I see many parallels between this movie and A.I on some key philosophical issues.

First, we encounter the issue of Self-awareness. And with it, the movie posited the conundrum of Caesar possessing self-awareness but discovering that his physical shell does not allow him the luxury of such a gift. In fact, this is what disrupts his inner peace. For he has achieved a level of intelligence that allows him to dream of wider horizons and question his position as a second-class entity in the world of man. "Is Caesar a pet?" he asks Rodman. "I am your father," Rodman replies.

I also enjoyed the tongue in cheek allusion to the classic movie where the ape scientists referred to the astronaut as "Bright Eyes". We look into the eyes for signs of intelligence, for the spark, for brightness. And often intelligent beings try to measure intelligence of others based on their own. This is flawed but understandable, how then can one make sense of something else alien but firstly through a system of knowledge over which one has sufficient mastery over? However, we must be truly wise to appreciate and continuously remind ourselves that we do not and cannot know all. When I interact with Hunter on a daily basis, I find that perhaps he is the more intelligent of us two for he has to learn my alien ways. Him having to subjugate his behaviorism to my way of life does not make me more intelligent or superior, it just reflects the power nexus between man and animal. He has no way to articulate and push forth his thoughts and rights. Thus I find the scene when Caesar says "NO" highly provoking as the first word that he masters and projects is the word which rejects the relationship between man and ape. This progresses when he also purposely allows himself to feel the sting of the electric prod (the symbol of man's violent domination over animals)so as to deny and overcome it.

I will write more in a bit.

2. I remember that I knew- hyper-awareness of hyper-reality

2011-08-10T20:22:00.000-07:00

I remember that I knew
I remember that I was troubled
But the calm has come and the storm has ebbed
As I understood sometime ago, my SOUL has lost its HUNGER
It has become satisfied with worldly busyness and undertakings
And so I forgot
But all the while it nagged
And I now remember
And I watched Buddha's story again
And I feel guilty again

All is everything and yet nothing
But to apply it in a realistic world is unrealistic
No, it is just that I am not BRAVE enough
Are we increasingly trapped in this modern world?
With KPIs and intellectual abilities being quantified?
Moral worth can never be measured
If only we spend less time talking, condemning and assessing
And allow our fellow human beings more time to experience, reflect and grow spiritually
Are we charged cowardly to admit that we are imperfect?
Is it truly a sign of weakness?
I am acutely aware that I am not BRAVE enough to be what I understand man to be and do what I understand man to do
So I admit
I am acutely aware that I lack the personality to invoke and inspire in others what I know
And yet what do I know? Was I not just momentarily clear about everything? Have I not lost it over again?
Any why do I deserve such a privileged position?
All I can do is share and show the inkling of the possibility
Everyone has to arrive in their own way

The greatest paradox is that True love betters us and yet traps us
And yet to leave true love is humanly cruel but spiritually divine
Such is man's dilemma
He may want to love selflessly
But others would not be trustworthy enough to receive and in turn be awakened
For past experiences have taught them to be wary

So I sigh as I always do and just remember that I knew
When the world slowed and I saw it all
And then lost it all
My hyper-awareness of hyper-reality

5. On the SOUL again- My understanding of it again and the Utility of such a concept

2011-08-10T18:07:00.000-07:00

I was trying to combat insomnia so I applied my mind as I lay in bed last night.

What is the SOUL? What is my personal definition and understanding of it?

The conception of the SOUL comes from self-consciousness which in turn gives birth to self-identity. Only then man think of "his" SOUL.

The SOUL to me is not necessarily real nor does it need to be. As before, "I find little reason to purport that we are spiritually privileged creatures. Indeed, we are the product of lucky exaptations and rugged ancestry. But given the power we hold over the rest of terran life, environment and this planet's possible trajectories." I still value it. Why? My moral-realist sociological stance is that many would understand it in terms of a religious viewpoint which is to be an intangible part of them. This conception of a SOUL survives beyond the perishable body and thus they behave according to a notion of good behavior so as to ensure a good rewards for their SOUL in the afterlife. This by and large aids the functioning of society which in turn renders the concept of the SOUL is definitely mechanistically useful (even if it may not be real).

The SOUL to me also requires going beyond the first step of self-awareness. If we are self-conscious but hold onto a biologically deterministic concept of man then the SOUL would just be survivalist notions invoked by the brain so as to allow for better self-preservation of the man as a species-being.

The SOUL requires an awareness of the emotive aspects of human experience. It is more than awareness in fact, it is the embracing and acceptance of the emotive aspects of human experience. And the idea that our existence is not so mundane and determined after all.

Now I shall delve deeper and state the difference between my understanding of the SOUL and IDENTITY for it seems both involve self-awareness. The SOUL to me is the emotive and true side of man and not his social ego/ identity for that is something which he acts out according to the social conditions that he is in in order to achieve various goals. The SOUL is the side of man which he knows to be his true self for man cannot lie to himself in his mind. He can deny himself but he cannot blatantly lie to himself. The SOUL has a voice. Some call it CONSCIENCE. I understand it to be the witness-consciousness. It shouts out the truth even when you do not want to hear it. That inner voice is the voice of your SOUL.

I am getting closer to my understanding of the SOUL. Therefore, please allow me to reiterate. The SOUL is my true and emotive self which is hidden away from social conditions. It is the true appreciation of all my experiences. Thus the SOUL can be nurtured through the experiences of life and meaningful expression and reflection. (On the other hand, identity is taught and perfected through social conditioning.)

I repeat myself on an important point. The SOUL may not be real. It may be and most likely is a survivalist notion invoked by the brain. But what are its other advantages to man? For although survival is the ultimate aim of all species-beings, I do not see it as a noble enough endeavor for a beautiful creature like man. Thus I should explore the benefits of the SOUL to man in a moral-realist individualist aspect more in depth.

The fact that the SOUL is hidden away from man makes it ideal for genuine, deep and personal reflection away from agents of social conditioning (which adds value to extended consciousness: the ability to add the awareness of the past and future into the mix and factor in such variables into decision-making). However, it can always be argued that one can never be entirely free from the influence of such agents (such as Semantics being the most influential and thus scary from a philosophically purist stance) but at least the SOUL allows for the possibility for such a beneficial enterprise. The other utility of the SOUL to man is that it allows for a development of his true individuality which allows for room for the assumption of responsibility for the consequences of his actions. This when coupled with the first advantage allows for the betterment of man's external actions. Lastly, the SOUL allows for men to connect to possibilities beyond the tangible world as the SOUL precisely exists in an intangible realm which is so real and vital to man. It allows his mind to expand beyond the purely biological and deterministic and to develop new mental horizons for all his actions.

I have dismissed it in the past and still see no reason why the SOUL is rightfully a spiritual entity. But I am curious: is it truly what I think it to be? And how beautiful it would be if indeed the SOUL had a spiritual utility? And what utility would that be?

1. The Buddha reminds me that I momentarily knew....

2011-08-09T07:50:00.000-07:00

More on Musashi's "Five Rings"

2011-04-18T04:35:00.000-07:00

Below are some quotes on what strikes me and what applies to Krav Maga fight philosophy.

Pay attention to the mind, not the body.

The observing eye is stronger, the perceiving eye is weaker.

Having a position without a position

A strike is when you consciously and deliberately deliver the blow you intend to strike.

Determine that today you will overcome yourself of the day before.

You can threaten by means of your body, sword and voice.

When an excessive number of sword moves are taught, it must be to commercialize the art and impress beginners of knowledge with many moves.

We Fight

2011-04-11T22:20:00.000-07:00

We fight because we fear
We fear because we breath
We breathe because we cling
We cling because we fear

We fight because we defend
We defend because we feel
We feel because we possess
We possess because we fear

We fight because we want
We want because we are not complete
We are not complete because we are
We are because we do not know better
We do not know better because we are human

The Cult of the body

2010-11-17T22:28:00.000-08:00

The body is our vessel and tool and is revered in human history. Thus the phenomenon of the "Cult of the body" is when an individual holds his/her pbysical prowess and abilities in reverence and seeks to continually improved himself/herself in this field. This is a multi-dimensional phenomenon which on a biological level is related to the biological imperative to reproduce and produce offspring. The physical characteristics of the body then serves as bodily markers of hereditary traits. The "Cult of the body" also serves as bodily markers hich are directly or indirectly linked to positive capabilities. These capabilities are those that are held in high regard and tied to concepts of the positive examples of what it means to be a particular sex. To be manly is to be fit for example.

But beyond this, I will explore the relevance of the 'Cult of the body' and its connections with my Moral man theory. Firstly, the 'Cult of the body' can be understood as the conduit of the perfection of the mind through the body. This can be explained through physical activities that the person puts his body through in order to achieve temperance of his mind where the 'mental monkey is caged in the battered body'. This no doubt is a good action and purpose of the 'Cult of the body' where the Moral man can then better understand worldly pain and struggles through first-hand physical experiences. The Moral man can also better understand worldly constructs of what can be accomplished by the human body and thus the limits of the human condition.

But this is only skin-deep. The next level of progression is where the body and mind are both equally challenged and the Moral man harnesses the 'Cult of the body' to express his will in the utmost experience of reality. This is when he stretches his mind and body to the limit of where it can go and he appreciates the co-existence and importance of each faculty. He is no longer purely interested in moving faster, jumping higher for example. He is now interested in how this abilities make his mental perception of the world sharper. He enjoys the light breeze that graces his sweat-laden frame whilst in motion. This combined application of both body and mind gives him joy past pure sporting achievement and social recognition. It also alleviates him from worldly pain and burdens as it is a spiritual recluse for him.

The final and ambitious level of progression is when the Moral man achieves the infinite (mind) through the finite (body). In fact, this is the level where the Moral man gets as close as he can to perfection (God) as he stretches his finite through his infinite. This is also when he can spread this phenomenon to others through infectious displays of physical prowess that inspire others to try similarly. The Moral man should also seek to cultivate this in others so that they too can be as close to God as possible and feel the weightless joy that he does.

Intellectual rebellion for the Good

2010-06-30T18:57:00.001-07:00

This post will be a sketch of what I conceptualized upon a paper in University. It was an educational pedagogy, even before I decided that I wanted to be a teacher. It is entitled “Intellectual rebellion for the Good”. This anachronistic oddity is indeed interesting to look back upon and examine if and how my actions within formal educational boundaries have aligned with this unaffected intellectual exploration from the yesteryears.

It firstly involves a macro environment which firstly entails the necessary existence of a healthy socio-emotional foundational basis for the student. Students must also be exercising the practice and of the values of “the Good”. This process involves constant alignment and realignment and concrete fruitful action thereafter in order to actualize the moral learning points and benefit the community. Every intellectual and scholastic endeavour is to be done with the end goal of “the Good” and not peripheral advantages like wealth and status.

Then we proceed with the process of creating an intellectual rebel who acts in the direction of and for the Good. The first stage basically involves the mastering of basics whereby the student must grasp a competent knowledge of the world around him. The educator plays the role of sharing of knowledge.

The second stage involves testing the students’ understanding through reflective processes and later bridge into higher order thinking processes. This stage is important because misunderstandings can lead to greater understandings when reflected and improved upon. The educator plays the role of assessor and guide.

The third stage for the student is to challenge his knowledge. This is executed via open-ended questioning techniques and reflective processes now take on a collaborative dimension in which the student starts to learn how to negotiate and assemble an intellectual product from various perspectives (which would at times be conflicting). The educator plays the role of facilitator in this stage.

The last stage is when the student now becomes an Intellectual rebel for the Good. There are clear lines of intellectual engagement in which the student truly believes in and upholds. Constructive rebellion is the goal, not anarchism. The intellectual rebel explores, challenges, deconstructs, consolidates and finally reconstructs in the direction of and for the Good.

Gateway Drugs: Marijuana VS Alcohol and Tobacco

2010-05-23T05:06:00.000-07:00

I do so love it when my students are conscious and intellectual beings who seek to question the ways of the world. What follows below is a Facebook thread between Atiqah and myself.

Me: The people who don't like you just haven't taken the time to get to know you, you are harmless and charming (I'm looking at you, government officials!)- the reason why Medical and legal authorities are against Marijuana is not so because of the effects of the substance itself but more in the fact that it is statistically proven to be a gateway drug...

Atiqah: but if marijuana has an illegal status in many countries because it's a gateway drug, why don't they make tobacco and alcohol illegal too? if it's because of MONEY, then won't marijuana make them richer too? and plus, marijuana doesn't have strong negative effects to the physical being of the user, unlike alcohol and tobacco.

Me: true, ah you have opened another can of worms. Worth exploring none the least. alcohol and tobacco appeared on the scene long before people knew about the addictive effects of narcotics. By the time they knew, various big companies had already established strong lucrative industries around it. They did try to outlaw these substances in various ... See Morecountries in various times. But it always turned out a failure given the influence of the large corporations and ingenuity of the consumers.

On the point of money, you are right. But given the current attitude towards any kind of substance use or abuse, companies can't risk the baggage of adding on one more substance to their shelves. With alcohol, their jobs of maintaining a consumer health friendly product is not so bad. But with tobacco, they have been constantly fighting a scientific battle against cancer-related and heart disease studies. And they have had to constantly refine their product to make it "healthier".

Then the official reason that Marijuana is a gateway drug doesn't really apply like you said since alcohol and tobacco are also statistically proven to be gateway drugs. Perhaps the real unspoken issue is that Marijuana production has been monopolized by drug syndicates who refuse to play with and by big corporate rules.

From a medical safety point of view, that means that the Marijuana products could be tampered with cheaper substances in order to earn their producers more money.

From a more real politico-economical stance, the issue is more about being unwilling to work with and in effect make legal these drug syndicates who are third world black market power players. If Marijuana was made legal on a large scale, this would in turn render unto these third world drug syndicates the opportunity to earn legal corporate status. Trapping them in that illegal status also gives the corporation the ability to condemn Marijuana as a product and draw attention away from the more real health hazards that they sell.

Lastly, the socio-economical reason why Marijuana is frowned upon is the transient and weightless lifetsyle and ideology that it is associated with. (As you mentioned, the Rastafarian influence). This is highly incongruent with the dominant established protestant work ethic that is the life force of modern economies (and I must say, you can see this in so many Singaporeans who pride work for work's sake and count their success as human beings in material and status terms). And as you should know, the abnormal easily and often becomes the deviant.

Note: Alcohol has much the same effects as Marijuana but users over time have become more loose with the temporary mentally-debilitating effects of alcohol by terming it as a "social lubricant".

5. Fight philosophy: On the "Berserk" state and "Rage"

2010-05-22T21:50:00.000-07:00

In this post, I will focus on the mentality or ability to switch from a calm and normal societal functioning mode to one that is prepared to take damage and dish out accordingly and even death at extremes which is so essential in both fighting for our lives or in the ring of a sanctioned fight.

Personally, I prefer the cool, calm and calculating detached approach to self and other when fighting. But the mainstream and spectator-projected blood lust upon combat sports and fights means that many a times, rage prevails in the popular pysche of both fighter and fight audience.

Before we delve into rage, I must separate it from the often confused "berserk" state. The berserk stage is a state of mind, body and social disconnection. The fear that a berserk fighter instils in the other feeds off his own self-conception of invulnerability and sometimes limitless god-like ability. In war situations, many documented cases of combatants going berserk later state a foggy memory of the incident. Why would such reckless behavior occur? On a biological level, it has apparent survival value. In the adrenaline-pumped and furious moment, the specimen overcomes all odds and betters his chances of survival since he has nothing to lose and everything to gain from the berserk state. Thus the berserk state ultimately derives from the fear of losing one's most precious gift and escalates into action in the form of an all-out attempt to overcome the odds.

Rage however has different roots. My personal experience of rage is "getting even". I recall being hit straight on in the face and then something changed in me. I hit hard and squarely out from a bad position. That rocked him. I rushed forward with my guard high and thinking to myself, "Oh, you are gonna pay for that." And accordingly, he pulled back. But I calmed myself down and smiled it off as I remembered that it was a friendly bout. Here in lies the first difference in rage and the Berserk state, I was able to remember my social time and space. This is what I believe rage boils down to. A sense of injustice, of something that needs to be righted. It greatly bolsters one's fighting spirit, to throw out that one hard strike from a defensive position which would rock the assailant who was peppering on raining blows and turn the initiative. It also achieves the same purpose as the Berserk state in instilling fear in one's opponent.

This then leaves me thinking: How do we de-escalate from a moment of rage to prevent the trappings of a mental state predominantly focused on offense (since the objective is to make the other pay) and thus leave one open to clever defensive strategies?

AND

Does a state of focused rage exist? Is it beneficial to maintain a focused rage in a bout?

4. Fight Philosophy- On Tactical Krav Maga, drawing from "Meditations on Violence"

2010-05-17T04:39:00.000-07:00

Violence is real and is unlike sparring. The intent is not to score points, secure dominance but to kill/harm/damage.

This post is an affirmation and refinement of TKM and the methods of instruction that I must impart to my future students.

Violence is real. It is raw. My humble experiences with it do not triumph the author's. But I recognize the numbing chemical cocktail, the rush and the mental playback on loop after the event as he mentions.

I strive to add in more mental preparation into TKM defenses. Verbal disarming and acting submissive are good enough. But to make things better, a deep cleansing breath, check your footing and a "Go" mental switch to attack must be flipped on. When jumped out of nowhere, the student must be trained to shut out all pain and information and just act: attack!

TKM's ladder of survival options fit with Sgt Miller's. It is better to run, de-escalate, fight than do nothing in that order respectively.

Avoidance is the biggest cure. If you do not go to troublesome places and look for trouble, trouble will most likely not look for you. But when it does, "Big Dog tactics" and circumventing conflicts with deliberate and purposeful submissive acts should also be taught to students as skills to deactivate the situation.

When we make the "Go" mental switch to fight, hit hard, fast and against vital areas (distinction must be made against pain and rehabilitating areas). TKM does this well as chained combatives and defense drills are effective and fast and yet simple, thus surviving the jarring effects of the adrenal chemical cocktail that floods our bodies in cases of confrontation and violence.

Things that need to be made better
"Big Dog tactics" and circumventing conflicts with deliberate and purposeful submissive acts -> role-playing

More focus must be done on getting hit and carrying on despite getting hit.

More unpredictable situations must be added in to drill students who have mastered basic principles in order to test and stretch them.

3. My name was Muon

2010-04-19T19:54:00.000-07:00

I once had a friend. He was always fast ahead of the rest of us. One day, he exclaimed excitedly that he would be going away. "Where?" asked the more slow-witted and brow-knitting ones among his peers. "Anywhere!" he replied with a crazy grin which hinted at an eccentric truth.

He was literally fast ahead of the rest of us. He built me a device so that I could forever see him in motion despite our distance and difference in speed. "Just keep it tracked on me, will you? And I will know that despite it all, I at least have you, my best friend, to keep an eye on me." And so I promised him. What else could I do?

So the day came and he bid us a nonchalant farewell to mask the sadness in his heart. He did not want to leave but yet he was never meant to be with us. Not at our slow and bogged down existence. The kind of existence where we allowed ourselves to be weighed down by worrying tendencies and minute pains. No, he was meant to fast ahead of the rest of us. And so he broke into a stride and before we knew it, he was not in our physical sights anymore. I peered through the device and saw him waving in slow-motion at me. Of course I realize that this was just an optical illusion as the light waves took longer and longer to reach me as he sped further and further away. Now we would always be behind him in the real sense.

And the real sense of it all edged its hard and cold unyielding self upon him. He thought that he had to be beyond it all to be free. But what he found was that the price of being exceptionable was often nothing more than cold and harsh loneliness. And so there was my best friend, fast and all alone. I could tell that he was upset for I could see him crying through the device. His tears crystallized and rolled down his cheeks in ever-slowing shades of emotive grey. Yet the constant in motion wanted to keep him constantly in motion. And to even attempt a stoppage of his course would require an extreme amount of counter-energy. Another vector in the opposite direction with a unthinkable amount of force. Why had he not taken that blatant option up, I pondered. Perhaps he knew that it would literally disrupt his core and he would tumble into non-existence in a colorful fireball that would rupture sadly and slowly like a kaleidoscope of colors before my eyes. But I think that the truth was more simple and foolish than that. He was too proud to try to slow down.

2. My name was Muon

2010-04-17T07:29:00.000-07:00

As Einstein put it, "time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live." Goethe too said, "it is optical illusion but optical truth." But yet, it was always simpler and more mentally convenient for your kind to believe and plan and judge and act based on your perceived reality.

I said these exact two sentences to her as I awaited her response. "But it is all so implausible and utterly mind-boggling," she stammered as she found her thoughts. "Is it so hard to grasp that all that we see and think we know is unreal? The Hindus speak of this as Maya. Look, it is just a simulacrum effect. Mathematical constructs are abstract representations of the real. We can't possibly have no correlates of knowing or perceiving the real," I answered coaxingly. "But all is that we see. Or rather all is that I know, I think. See? Now you are casting doubt on all that I know and this is edgy stuff," she then took a sip of her Mocha frappucino. Looking at the water particles edge their way down the sides of the frozen surface, I gathered my thoughts and plunged in once again, "Light is all that we know and base our perceived reality upon. We know that nothing is faster than light but yet we know that light has a definite speed. By that logic, there could be something faster than light."

I remembered walking home in my heavy suit and tried to place myself in the three impossibly unified levels of reality. Where would I be? In the limited perceived reality of the homosapiens? In the upper limits of their scientific philosophies- general relativity? Or in the lower limits of matter and processes- Quantum mechanics? And I remembered smiling because I realized that it did not matter which level of reality I could conveniently categorize myself into as my love for her transcended all and was independent of all.

1. My name was Muon

2010-04-11T03:42:00.000-07:00

My name was Muon. I was a sentient being and was of a parallel universe. But I managed to live among you electromagnetic (EM) beings in your perceived reality for a long time. I chose to do so as I came to love you. I came to love how your kind stretched the realities of your limited perceptual field with beautiful mathematical and scientific constructs. Pure genius is what I told myself, they must be genius of a species. But of course, there were some of you who were so rigid in your ways of scientific realism. And it was this group of you who ultimately banished me from the warm existence in your EM world.

Of course I had to do certain things in order to live among your kind. I did not interact with matter as you do. I only interacted with most material in your world in what your scientist termed as 'weak interactions'. It seemed to imply that I did not possess the ability to connect on a deep emotive level with any matter or any being. The sad and plain truth was that I did not repel and attract like most charged particles. Or at least I did not do so with most of the matter in your perceived reality. It was just not my style. Thus to prevent myself from free-falling through the empty spaces in your world of EM interactions, I had to wear a specially designed suit made out of a few meters of iron. This stopped me from being muonic. But yet at the same time, wearing and moving around in this awkward suit made me what you kind called "moronic".

So sometimes I recalled slipping out of my iron skin and just existing. Since I already knew of your kind, I could contemplate and imagine your existence. I often occupied the same physical species with your kind and your matter without you ever knowing I was there. This was blissful times. I could be without judgment. This parallel coexistence was not a trick. It was not science fiction. It was just a matter of size. I simply slipped in between the room that existed within every atom of your universe. No, I never felt that I was being selfish since there was space for about 100,000,000,000,000 parallel atoms like me to live within every atom of your universe. As you can imagine, there was plenty of space. Whoever said that size doesn't matter?

8. On time- Time made relative (animals and us)

2010-04-08T20:51:00.001-07:00

Our appreciation of time is relative and meaning-driven. When we have a weak concept of our mortality, time may seem draggy. It may drip like a stale droplet of paint clinging to a wet wash wall and refuse to dry no matter how we stare at it and wish it so. However, the closer we get to our graves, the more rich an appreciation of time gets. Every moment has a gravity to it. Indeed, our appreciation of time depends on the meaning to which we attach to a subject matter with which it occupies. It impregnates and makes time laden.

Thus before personal meaning gets attached to any event, self-awareness is key. Manoj Thulasidas argues that animals are unlikely to have a sense of time since they do not possess self-awareness. I argue otherwise since animals with no self-awareness do have a sense of time, albeit not as sophisticated and meaning-laden as we do. Why? They may not know of time as limited in absolute. But I argue that they do know of time as limited. This is because they exhibit knowledge of moments and duration of such moments with which they often need to perform and complete important biological imperatives within.

They certainly can appreciate the sequential nature of time as well since they display appreciation of key moments that lead to each other in key processes. They are also able to link and harness previous memories into cyclical utility for the future when the cycle perpetuates itself.

Slipping away

2010-04-07T18:13:00.000-07:00

We forget. I have forgotten how I have slipped away from my craft. My craft of viscerally tearing away at the surface of assumptions and surface-level thoughts and feelings. Too wound up in living the "real" life, I have been. Finding a home, working, fighting. All this has taken their precedence over the hunger. Yet it still bites and claws at me, reminding me of the nibbling and eager promises that I have failed upon myself.

Happiness also drains away. Contentment satiates. I am feeling like the full man. But this is good in a sense. I can't imagine it any other way.

Maybe all I need to remind myself once in awhile and not neglect the project is through the mediums which most enthrall and represent me. I have to write music and write again. I have to bend and create. I will do so. I will find the time for what is time if not an instrument of my disposal?

Plato- The cave

2010-03-24T07:21:00.000-07:00

3. Fight philosophy- Wisdom From the "Five Rings" (Musashi)

2010-03-20T21:21:00.000-07:00

No man is invincible and therefore no man can fully understand that which would make him invincible.

It is doubtful that anyone truly understands the 'real' way of strategy, much less truly lives it. Yet military leaders must have some understanding of strategy and they must pass it on to their warriors, regardless of the limitations of their own understanding. Strategy demands that you know the difference between yourself and others.

Do not mistake that it is sufficient to finish one section of a job without having planned its continuation. Masters plan for contingency even when it appears that they are only improvising.

The warrior is quiet and strong and seem to be doing nothing. They do not appear to be tense and do not appear to be in disarray. They simple appear.

Perception relies on intuition and is developed through practice. Sight is purely the physical ability to use the eyes. One must be prepared for the possibility of losing one's sight in combat.

The warrior must be loose and tight at the same time. He must be firm and resolute, yet pliable.

Regardless of combat circumstances, you must remain calm. Calmness is attained through meditation and belief in your own skills.

The warrior must be flexible enough to change the entire structure of his attack at any moment.

To become one with the attack, you must strike as quickly and directly as possible without giving the enemy any room should he retreat and not give him the time to regain and regather himself. You must stick to him like glue without worrying whether you will be hit in return. When you go into the attack, you are essentially telling the enemy that you don't think much of his spirit. Plus there is always the possibility of missing the block, if you approach the enemy with resolve, you will be in a better position to finish him off.

There is no need for the enemy to start combat, you go into the attack and if the enemy decides to go in at the same time then you must be quicker, more focused and resolute.

You must learn different combinations till they become part of you and come without thinking.

Falling on the enemy is attacking without preconceived ideas as to how to conclude the battle.

You must continuously strike and counterstrike until you break the will of the enemy.

Use everything to your advantage at all times. When outdoors, keep the sun behind you. When indoors, keep a door or avenue of escape behind you.

By constantly creating difficulties for him, you will force him to deal with more than one thing, giving you the advantage.

If perfection were attainable, it would have no value and there would be no reason to pursue it.

Feint prior to attacking strongly in order to open up the enemy.

There are weak spots in all armor. Chip away at the weak spots and he will eventually weaken. At times it may be difficult for you to continue the attack when the enemy is not beaten in body and spirit, this is when you must reach into the abyss and bring yourself to totally destroy the enemy.

Speed is relative, it is dependent upon the speed of the enemy. You must adjust yourself accordingly, if you move too slow or fast, you may give him the advantage. So you should instead strive always for quickness.

2. Fight Philosophy- Combat sports and Honor

2010-03-13T20:39:00.000-08:00

In this post, I will be exploring the relation between fighting and honor and link it to modern sanctioned combat sports. First, I shall define "Honor" which is the evaluation of a person's trustworthiness and social status based on that individual's espousals and actions. Honor is the external expression of a person's character: whether or not the person reflects honesty, respect, integrity, or fairness. Accordingly, individuals are assigned worth and stature based on the harmony of their actions, code of honor, and that of the society at large in our concerned arena of Fighting.

Next, I trace the roots of modern fight sports which are derived from hand-to-hand complements to shield bearing and weapon slashing combat systems. This is because in ancient war (and even now), empty-handed combat has its relevance in keeping the individual alive. All modern combat sports are watered-down versions of such fighting systems and have come to be through the implementation of rules so as to limit fatalities and make it more culturally acceptable and in turn economically viable in a the modern world context. Also modern sanctioned combat sports are means of outlawing legally and culturally deviant forms of dueling in a world of state sanctioned violence. But ironically and perhaps intelligently, modern sanctioned sports borrowed many rules from the various sets of Code duello that existed. A code duello is a set of rules for a one-on-one combat, or duel. As we can see, Codes duello laid the foundation for modern sanctioned combat sports in their role of regulating dueling and assuring that non-violent means of reaching agreement be exhausted and that harm be reduced, both by limiting the terms of engagement and by providing medical care. Very importantly, they also ensured that the duels be witnessed. The witnesses would allay doubts of foul play to grieving members of factions and help provide testimony if legal authorities become involved. This would be the pre-modern equivalent of referees and medical doctors who could call decisions and for the fight to stop.

Moving away from Dueling and refocusing on warring, we find that it is precisely in the context of warring that honor came about as a linked concept. For one of the main purposes of fighting was the assertion or testing of one's masculinity since warring was predominantly a male occupation. The secondary implication was also that success in fighting and winning one's enemy meant that one could increase his economic resources which would indirectly add onto one's social status within his group and confer somatic and reproductive advantages. This still holds relevance in the world of modern combat sports.

Honor has to be validated by an audience. This was why private challenges often occurred in ancient warfare and was viewed and cheered on by their brethren on both sides. Successes and failures alike would be recorded down into folk cultures in the form of stories and songs and be re-consumed and passed on down to future generations. Thus "Pain was temporary while Honor and Glory was forever" but many fail to recognize that this phrase would not hold through without audience validation. Losing could mean the infliction of a negative social response upon the loser whereby others would take him to be weak and exploit him in the future. Thus honor was a very valuable social commodity that would be guarded to great lengths. We see the modern recognition and conferring of honor upon combatants in the form of medals. In modern combat sports, marks of martial excellence are enabled by the keeping of fight statistics and in turn can be constantly assessed and reassessed by fight audiences.

Honor is also dependant on one's enemy. The more skilled one's opponent is and the more spirit that one's opponent displays adds to the overall difficulty and value of the fight and confers upon the winner more honor for the act of subduing such a worthy opponent. Thus the modern conception of weight and skill classes which pit "equals" against each other. No or little honor is to be gained by defeating a minor.

1. Fight Philosophy: Krav Maga

2009-12-26T23:45:00.001-08:00

In this post, I will be comparing the main tenets of Krav Maga's fight philosophy against the political realist philosophy.

Pre-emptive attack: This rests on the assumption that the defender is weaker and needs the element of surprise. Another assumption is that the attacker is indeed aggressive enough to take action. But then again on the other hand, no action may mean harm to the defender.

From another angle of analysis, a pre-emptive attack is one method of power maximization, the quinessential asset to a realist player in order to ensure his survival.

“Fast in and out”: The amount of damage dealt to the attacker stops once attacker is unable to attack anymore. In essence, this is a ethical use of strength and power with limits.

Multiple assailants: Humans, being pack animals, can and will gang up on the Krav Maga defender. By being aggressive against one of the multiple assailants first, the Krav Maga defender is creating an tactical opening and is also striking at the unity of their collective will, Their collective unity would have to be tested against the individual “fight of flight” and it would make them question if it is worth it to attack such a pugnacious defender.

“Borrowing from the best”: Everything works so long as it works. The over-arching philosophy behind Krav Maga's choice of style and combatives is efficiency, not ideology.

“A creature of its environment”: Having been born out of the aftermath of the WW2 and Yom Kippur war, the original creators of Krav Maga would find that reality is harsh and so too the combat system must be. When transferred to the anarchic reality of the street, we find that the Krav Maga defender must play by the rules (or lack of) in order to survive.

“I am no superhero”: the Krav Maga defender will attempt to de-escalate the hostility of the situation because the defender knows full well the dangers of combat.

“An elusive creature”: This is where the value of verbal disarming comes into play as the Krav Maga defender appears submissive and the neutral stance which he adopts can explode into bursting combatives at any second. All these means that the Krav Maga defender is an elusive creature for the attacker to read.

“The chain is only as strong as its weakest link”: Krav Maga combatives are all aimed at the weakest spots in the human anatomy because that is the fastest way to end a fight and the attacker is always assumed to be stronger. This is another method of power maximisation.

“Tragic Realism”: as witnessed by point 1 and 3, Krav Maga operates on a level of “pessimistic realism” which is important to understand. Because merely looking at the dangers ahead and resigning oneself to it inevitability is cynicism. Looking at the dangers ahead and preparing accordingly is pessimism.

On Civilisation (John Armstrong)

2009-11-26T21:43:00.000-08:00

Armstrong's thoughts are very much in sync with my own on agents of change, love and art as bridging towards the truth. In this book, he brings in an extra dimension of civilisation as the societal life-support system in the environment of freedom in order to nurture high-quality relationships between people and their ideas and objects. He defines such high-quality relationships as enabling the flourishing of our human nature. Such relationships are beyond attachment and obsession and invoke a questioning of worth and value.

And so this adds onto my idea: that free agents come together/ act seperately in order to foster a society with a nurturing environment with the aim of developing human flourishing (freeing the others from the social realm of pain and thereby allowing them to look upon and explore concepts of value).

But this is no airy-fairy idealism for he acknowledges that material support must be present in order to allow for such flourishing to happen. Very importantly, he even goes on to defend worldy goods and that they are not the cause of us being spiritually/ innerly deficient. He posits that it is not material comfort that has beguiled us from the path but that we have not grown sufficiently in our inner world. And this is because we allow our attachment to material goods to be just that. We do not use them as conduits in which to explore and develop our concepts of value. To achieve this, we must go, "So I love having this/admiring this object, but why do I love it? What does my love for this object then tell me about myself?"

Another important point that Armstrong puts forth is the distinction between "happiness" and "flourishing" and that we should aim for the latter since happiness is a buoyant inner state but not grounded in action and character. This brings into emphasis the new maxim that I shall adopt for next year, "How can I be of help to others today?" We must help each other deal with the challenges of mortality in the outer realm where the tangible realities bite at us on the most immediate level. And when happiness can be achieved, we must guide others on to a flourishing state.

13. On War- The "Warrior's Vanity"

2009-11-23T23:22:00.000-08:00

In this post, I shall combine lines of thought from Azar Gat and Leo Braudy and explore the significance of the "Warrior's Vanity" as a sub-cultural superstructure in sustaining the soldierly ethos. (as termed in my previous post, "On war- What makes an effective soldier?"

Azar Gat starts us off with his argument of the evolutionary strain on all facets of human civilization and their origins from the innate biological drives that derive from our reproductive and sustenance needs. Everything else that is to be (which Azar understands with a Marxist conceptual aid as the cultural super-structure) has its roots from these biological drives, whether directly or indirectly.

Similarly, the evolutionary strain runs it course and casts its effects on the sub-cultural super-structure of the warring class/ group as well. Leo Braudy termed this set of values as "Code of Honor" which many have used before him. However, I posit that my term, the "Warrior's Vanity", lends an extra dimension of conceptual appreciation to this set of values. Firstly as Braudy argues, the code of honor needs to be affirmed by an appropriate audience. This feeds the warrior's vanity for he wishes to be desired/ respected and admired for his displays of courage and skill in battle. It is both self-affirming and reinforcing of the expectations of soldierly conduct in battle.

The significance of this much prized and justified source of vanity is that it helps signal the boundaries of exclusive membership which is highly important to all sub-cultures. Secondly, as explained above, it serves to anchor membership. Lastly, it posits the individual to rise above personal interest and ensures the thriving of the warring group's endeavors.

12. On War- The myth of US tactical and technological superiority in the Vietnam War

2009-10-18T23:54:00.000-07:00

Most talk of the US's impressive kill ratio in the Vietnam war. They would argue that the US won the mainforce war with their superior technology but lost the domestic and international political war. But Paddy Griffith argues a different case as he focuses on the weaknesses of the US's technology and tactics which ultimately led to a slow and uncertain mainforce victory which inadvertently led to a unfavorable domestic and international political slant towards their war effort. In his argument, the US's tactical and technological superiority over the NVA was by no means overwhelming.

Firstly, Griffith argues that the US did not succeed as they thought that they would in the area of surveillance. Surveillance is of paramount importance when faced with an enemy based on guerrilla tactics. The physical constraints of the environment gave strength to the NVA's already elusive nature due to the denseness of the jungle and the cloak of the nights. Chemical defoliation and large scale land clearing helped but did little to improve the overall situation. Aerial surveillance also failed to penetrate the canopy. The unmanned sensors of the Mcnamara wall seemed to deliver the promise of penetrating the canopy and saving manpower. However, maintainence of the unmanned sensors and the need for follow-up action meant that it was only an auxillary and never a subsitute for the soldier on the ground. Proponents for the wall talk of the success of FSB Crook and its success with its sensors but similarly impressive kill-rates were also accomplished by FSBs with no sensors.

Next, Giffith turns to examine the lethality of US forces in mobile warfare with the enemy. General Westmoreland in late 1965 put forth the doctrine of "Search and Destroy" in order to capture the initiative in the war effort. But the problem was that the enemy was near impossible to locate before he sprang an ambush. Preparatory fire was thus used in order to flush out any NVA before US forces landed anywhere and also to boost US force morale. However, this was counterproductive as it signaled their arrival and the NVA knew when to hide and where to later attack. As a rule of thumb, US forces thus still found themselves ambushed by the NVA who had good fire discipline and would pin down the US forces with their initial initiative. The US forces would then reply by slowly escalating the level of their return fire (small arms to MG to mortar to Artillery/ Air strikes) Popular media protrays this escalation of firepower as utterly devastating on the NVA. Griffith argues otherwise. Firstly, fire orders were not accurate given that the fog of war was given a boost by the dense jungles. Artillery fire would then suffer from hesitance and/ or inaccuracy. Also the NVA would smartly close in with the US forces thus only their extended flank and rear columns (if any) would be vulnerable to US supporting arms fire as they would not risk hitting their own. Mortars also needed clearings and these were hard to find in the jungles. Heliborne support fire suffered from low aerial visibility. If the US forces threw smoke signals, the NVA would follow suit so as to confuse the pilots. Also, heli-borne support fire suffered from the inherent technical need for helicopters' high maintenance hours (thus there would often be too little and too few). Fixed wing support fire carried bigger payloads and thus needed larger safer ranges and so they mostly served as interdiction and/or counter-battery work.

Griffith then moves on to debunk the myth of the next chain in the alleged US tactical and technological superiority chain: its mobility. Or rather, air mobility as was the case in the Vietnam war. Air mobility rested on the sturdy backs of the helicopters. However, heli-borne operations suffered from many constraints. Helicopters needed LZs and the jungle terrain made their options scarce. LZs had to be cleared laboriously and maintained. LZs also needed to be "cold" lest helicopters would be lost to NVA sniping fire. Thus security was another issue. Heli-borne troops in dense jungles also tended to be lightly armed and their much vaunted mobility reverted back to foot mobility once they landed. Of course, they still had immense advantages of speed over their foot-slogging predecessors but their mobile advantage must not be exaggerated. LZs tended to be out of operation areas since they would be too "hot". This also meant that when casualties needed to be evacuated, US troops would have to fight their way out of sticky encirclement situations in order to reach their LZs in a mad-scramble to disengage.

Fourthly in a connected line of thought, Griffith then goes on to contemplate the extra-tactical dimension that the political necessity of evacuating their wounded placed limitations on US mobility. Many operations were virtually halted as it became necessary to secure the evacuation of casualties. Real time effort and attention which could have been used to pursue the NVA would then be needed to pull them back to the LZs.

Thus because of these reasons, he surmises that the US forces often did not "fire and manoeuvre" but instead the US infanrty simply found the NVA and then "manoeuvre and fire". They puckered down, made an all-round defence, ordered for supporting arms, sat tight, fought desperately out to evacuate their wounded and did not pursue the NVA. Thus the NVA were seldom decisively beat in mainforce war and this protracted the conflict.

11. On War- The myth of Nuclear Deterrence

2009-10-12T01:06:00.000-07:00

In this lecture, Wilson Ward debunks the myth that the dropping of the Atomic bombs were the main reason that Imperial Japan surrendered. He argues that in fact it served as a convenient political face-saver. He also argues why in the modern era, the continued proliferation of Nuclear weaponary makes world security even more tenuous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BFyfK43mEk

Follow the link above to the video lecture.

10. On War: Expansion on "Why men fight?"

2009-09-20T22:48:00.000-07:00

Azar Gat's "War in Human Civilisation" has expanded some of my prior thoughts about the "resource" explanation for why man fight. This considerations were absent from my previous conceptualizations because of my lack of knowledge in this particular econo-environmental sphere. Resources can cause conflicts by virtue of them being resources. How so? This post will explain how.

Azar Gat expands my thoughts about the topic that low-yield environments simply requires larger territories for subsistence, Nor does wide spacing out mean that there are empty spaces to move to. As a rule, species quickly fill up their particular habitat and soon push against its boundaries.

Even in lush environments, the classical Rousseauite anthropological imagination is not valid since simple hunter-gatherers are in fact restricted nomads or centrally based wanderers. These territories were sanctioned by totem and myth and trespassers would provoke severe aggression.

In addition, "plenty of resources" is only relative. The more resource rich a region, the more people it attracts from outside, and the more internal population growth will take place. Thus a new equilibrium will eventually be reached and recreating the same tenuous ratio of subsistence.

Human needs can also be overtaken by human desire. (as I previously pointed out under perceived importance of resources)Human competition then increases with abundance and deficiency. With abundance, some monopolize access to resources and others try to upset this pattern of allocation. Also, ostentatious consumption comes into play with decorative items which are possessed and coveted for prestige purposes. These would come in the form of crafted scarce resources. Such monopolies and social positions would add onto the ability of such "Big Men" to have future access to resources.

9. On War: Revolution (Hannah Arendt) and its recourse to freedom

2009-09-18T23:16:00.000-07:00

I am sidetracking a bit and exploring one particular form of war: a revolutionary war and starting off with understanding it in its political context. With Arendt's book, we have an insight into two revolutions: the American and French and explore the factors that led to its different outcomes. For now from hindsight, we have come to understand revolution as an action (which may constitute war) to freedom. But Arendt breaks down our lens of presentism and she starts off with the exploration of the term. The term "revolution" dates back to Machiavelli but it meant originally restoration. In the initial stags of both American and French revolution, firmly convinced that they could do no more than restore an old order that had been violated and disturbed. They merely wanted to revolve back to old times. The metaphoric use of it in political language also carried with it the notion of irresistibility and it being removed from all human influence. In addition, Hegel's historical processes convinced all who followed in the revolutionary footsteps of the French revolution that they were agents of history and historical necessity

She then moves on the social question and states that poverty was almost absent from American scene, the poor in America were laborious but not miserable. Darkness rather than want is the curse of poverty. French liberation from tyranny meant freedom for few if most were still loaded down by their misery. They had to be liberated once more from the yoke of necessity. And in comes compassion which abolishes the distance because it is easier to suffer than to see others suffer. With it, they claimed for swift and direct action, action with the means of violence. But solidarity was aroused by suffering but not guided by it. It is guided by and committed to ideas and translates into an emotion-laden insensitivity to reality. When pity is taken as the spring of virtue, holds a greater capacity for cruelty than cruelty itself. The action of violence may appear irresistible because it lives from the necessity of biological life itself thus the rebellions of the belly are the worst. Arendt points out that the direction of American revolution remained committed to foundation of freedom and establishment of lasting institutions since there was no sufferings around them to lead them astray from reason.

Another point was that the men of French revolution used freedom in novel way which could exist only in public, away from free will and thought. All except the ruling class suffered from obscurity because the public realm was invisible to them and they lacked the public space where they themselves could become visible. Tyranny then became understood as the form of government in which the ruler ruled out of his own will and in pursuit of his own interests, thus monopolized for himself the right of action in public realm (even though he may rule for their good and according to laws)

The two revolutions were also influenced by the type of power they overthrew. The Americans separated powers because only power can arrest power. To do this, they needed to create more power, an entirely new power center and they followed the model of limited monarchy that they overthrew, never even tempted to derive law and power from the same source. Power from the people but law from the constitution. Now what about the source of law? From the constitution, “we hold these truths to be self-evident” which meant that agreement between those who have embarked upon revolution was pre-rational. It informed reason but was not its product. Thus the source of law was not held by the American but they were held by this divinely informed reason. However, the overthrow of French absolutism meant that they had to find an absolute from which to derive authority for law and power and they could not find it in religion anymore. Both power and law in the French model was anchored in the will of the nation which was above and outside all government and law. This led it to be easily manipulated by someone willing to take the burden upon himself and majority decision degenerated in majority rule where the minority was pushed out.

The American revolution was also born of promises. The American revolutionists realized that whatever men may be in their singularity (good or evil) could bind themselves into a community and this need not necessarily reflect the sinful side of men. For them, binding and combining were the means by men join together for the purpose of action and is by which power is kept in existence and this was done from the start prior to the revolution. Thus in the American model, we witnessed force (through binding and combining) and power (kept in existence and binding and combining and kept in check by separating power) but in the French, we witnessed violence and power (both of which were born out of violence and seated in the will of the nation which was above and beyond the body politic and in nature, could not be kept in check).

8. On War- "Aiya! Singapore just kena one Atomic bomb, all die already. What is the point of defending?"

2009-09-15T00:38:00.000-07:00

*Briefly translated- Singapore is of such a small landmass that if we were to suffer an attack from an atomic/ nuclear weapon, we would definitely all be wiped out. Thus what is the point of defending Singapore at all?*

If you are a Singaporean adult like me, I am sure that you have been hearing kids of all ages from the years when we were young till now who state this claim. And if you are like me, you would no doubt feel the intellectual exasperation. And if you are an adult but do not see any problem with the above exclamation, please take a seat with the children while I shall once and for all put this claim to rest.

In this post, I shall argue the case of "Theory meets Reality" on the various claims of the statement above.

Firstly,Singapore is of such a small landmass and concentrated density that if we were to suffer an attack from an atomic/ nuclear weapon, we would definitely be all wiped out. Yes, this is a definite. Most if not all of us would be wiped out. Why? The terror of atomic/ nuclear weapons inflict direct damage through static, dynamic overpressure and thermal radiation which on impact with a human body would cause severe burning, hemorrhaging or air embolisms, either of which can be rapidly fatal.

The indirect effect of such weapons would be a nuclear fallout. This is because when added to the dust of radioactive material released by the bomb itself, a large amount of radioactive material is released into the environment. This form of radioactive contamination poses the primary risk of exposure to ionizing radiation for a large nuclear weapon. This radioactive dust, consisting of hot particles, is a kind of radioactive contamination. It can lead to the contamination of the animal food chain. Rapid death following high doses of penetrating whole-body radiation, to essentially normal lives for a variable period of time until the development of delayed radiation effects, in a portion of the exposed population, following low dose exposures. Late or delayed effects of radiation occur following a wide range of doses and dose rates. Delayed effects may appear months to years after irradiation and include a wide variety of effects involving almost all tissues or organs. Some of the possible delayed consequences of radiation injury are life shortening, carcinogenesis, cataract formation, chronic radiodermatitis, decreased fertility, and genetic mutations.

So yes in theory, if we were to suffer from an attack by such weapons, we would surely "all die already". But theory has to meet reality which is the hallmark of all sound argumentative statements.

What does it mean to possess a nuclear weapon? What does it cost? Let's explore the physical costs first. These would include the costs of research and development, fabrication, production and the infrastructure required for the launching/ deployment of these weapons. These costs come in the amounts of trillions. This realistically cuts down the amount of countries and individuals who are able to deploy such weapons.

Next and perhaps of more gravity are the political costs of even possessing such weapons. The political status of being a Nuclear Weapon State (NWS) is high indeed. The first group of countries who are pushing up the entry of barrier so as to speak are the NWS already present who have every incentive to keep their club limited in size so as to keep the international Balance of Power in their favor. When a state acquires nuclear weapons ability, the cost of invading that state then tactically increases, since it becomes more difficult and expensive for the aggressor to gain a military edge. Then there are NWS supported multilateral pressures exerted by the likes of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which seek to keep the BOP just the way it is. So any state who wished to acquire NWS status would have to run up against the big boys. And current US foreign policy, along with its allies and other powerful nuclear-armed states, have worked to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, while also attempting to coax rival NWS into decommissioning their nuclear weapons. And most importantly, US has been careful to leave some of its important allies with nuclear weapons in order to preserve the BOP in certain regions like Israel in the Middle East.

In this third section of this counter-argument, we must consider the possibility if a state would use atomic/ nuclear weapons against Singapore in the first place. The true value of such weapons lie in its deterrence and bargaining power. This is because the fear of reprisals from using such a morally objectionable weapon in this current world order would bear into the mental calculations of aggressors. We all are well-associated with the chilling end-game scenario that was the fear of all parties involved in the Cold War, "MAD" or Mutually-Assured Destruction.

Lastly we consider if Singapore even warrants an attack from such weapons. We are not tactically costly to defeat if we were to come face to face with a NWS who would logically have better military capabilities than us. So we would not be in the same situation as Japan in WW2 who doggedly refused to surrender and would cost the US millions of lives if US chose to launch a landed invasion. Secondly, Singapore would have to commit a seriously heinous international atrocity to warrant the use of such punitive and morally objectionable weapons on us. Thirdly, would we be even worth the attention and all the physical and political costs incurred to level such weapons against us? Fourthly and consider this: even if we were still in the age of conquest, occupation and harvesting of resources, Singapore is essentially an information exchange and trade hub and such "resources" would not be able to exploited by an aggressor who uses such weapons and obliterates all people and infrastructure in the act.

6. On war- What makes an effective soldier in a state of War? (Micro-aspect)

2009-09-12T00:28:00.001-07:00

This post is a refinement of the previous posting. I shall explore the question of "What makes an effective soldier in a state of war?" from the micro-aspect's two paradigms: the mental faculties and physical capabilities of the soldier. Before we carry forth, what is an "Effective" soldier? I understand effectiveness to mean that the soldier can carry out what is required of him/her in a real warring situation. And the micro-aspect will be understood as all the faculties and capacities of the individual soldier. Of course some of the assumptions of a micro-aspect below has to remain as a purely theoretical delimitation of boundaries.

We shall first concentrate on the mental faculties of the effective soldier. The first micro-condition that exists in this paradigm is initiative. This translates into a flexibility in tactics which allows the soldier to adapt, counter and exploit. This is very important because the uncertainty of war is ever certain. So initiative helps pierce through the "fog of war" and foster a higher chance of success despite very real uncertainties. But as argued in my earlier post, initiative as a offspring of individualism must still be subsumed as part of a strategic hold (collectivism) lest it becomes unorganized and threatens tactical coherency.

Volunteerism is the second micro-condition in the paradigm of mental faculties that I shall delve into. Volunteerism aids in the effectiveness of a soldier in three important areas. Firstly, a unit of volunteers has the confidence of dedication from the company of comrades because he/she knows that every boot on the ground next to him/her signed up for this. Second, a crucial psychological acceptance of one's lot also means that such soldiers can be pushed to greater limits in training or real situations. This undoubtedly translates into greater effectiveness. One can fall back upon one's conviction to have chosen to be there in times of ordeal to draw strength. Thirdly, all these gets spilled over into a positive sense of warriors' vanity. He/she is most likely to push himself/herself to perform so as to be accepted as worthy in the eyes of his/her fellow gritty-minded comrades. Attempts at one-up-manship will also ensue which would also lead to the volunteer soldier pushing his limits to perform.

Thirdly, every soldier needs a cause. And the most primordial and effective of causes is a personal stake. The most effective form is of course the cause of protection of personal kin and property. Thus most wars, even offensive ones, are masked with a defensive necessity. A soldier fighting to defend all that is all to him will more likely fight to the end since it is matter of survival. This is opposed to a raider or looter who fights only when it beneficial and flees to gain another day. The ardent (which is grounded in desperation and a closed situation) defender has to make every day of his count so as to defend all that is dear to him. In the most hard-hitting real situations, the psychological connection to what is at stake on the macro-scale loses emphasis to what is at stake on the micro-scale who are their comrades next to them. It is well known and proven that when the rounds fly, soldiers fight for their buddies next to them. It is only when the pounding of lead dies down and out, does the soldier reflect on the nobler causes. Thus these two aspects need each other to make the soldier an effective military machine.

Next up is mental strength which is quintessential for effective soldiering since this profession often puts one in many situations that are beyond daily pain, deprivation and fatigue thresholds.

We shall now move onto the paradigm that involves the physical capabilities of the effective soldier. Fitness is a two-dimensional requirement of the effective soldier. At the base level is physical fitness. Add on the burden of combat loads and stress of combat fatigue and deprivation and you have combat fitness. This then brings into emphasis the previous point of the importance of mental strength and bridges into our next point: Realistic training.

Realistic training is the next hallmark of the physical capabilities of the effective soldier. Realistic training saves the soldier in a real state of war as he knows what to expect. This transfers into the elimination of reflex time and the effective soldier operates on drilled efficient mechanical reflex. Many aspects of realistic training also dehumanizes the nasty psycho-social aspects of warfare (namely killing)and thus downplays emotive reactions that could prove detrimental to the actual execution of motions. If we explore what all this means, we should also come to realize and appreciate the importance and omnipresence of mental faculties in this factor as well.

7. On War: Clausewitz's "On War"

2009-09-09T23:02:00.000-07:00

Of course, this is a must read for my inquiry into the topic. The book that inspired and shaped much of contemporary thought on the topic. In this post, I shall be touching on the various significant concepts that I picked up from this essential text.

Clausewitz puts forth his conceptualization of the operating levels of war. Politics or policy lies outside these operating levels but is the root cause of the existent of the resultant operating levels of war as Clausewitz puts it. It can take the form of hostile or peaceful.

Strategy is the overarching macro level. Its aim is the destruction of the enemy's spirit and cohesion by determining the enemy's center of gravity and focus upon it. Clausewitz speaks of war in its limited political scope since once the destruction of the enemy's spirit and cohesion is achieved, the killing should cease. Strategy takes two forms; offensive or defensive. Next comes a modern operating level of war: Operations. Strategy is perhaps the most important because it can lead directly to peace. Thus a general must be in tune with state policy and the military should be under the control of the political.

Operations was made possible with the Napoleonic invention of corps since this meant that the self-sufficient formations could successfully engage in operations by itself.

Next the last operating level of war exists in the "Lowest" tangible realm. But as Clausewitz puts it (and most do not see the existence of this important argument of his)since success in this operating level of war determines strategy. So strategy must always keep tactics in consideration.

Another essential point was what Clausewitz argued that light cavalry and infantry did more than screening the main body of troops. This adds onto my argument about individualism in the state of war since such troops in the era of gunpowder and marching armies needed to be more motivated, more tactically intelligent and needed to be more loyal (since they were absent from the constant scrutiny and command scope of their commanders). This traits of individualism were essential since they were engaged in independent operations and needed flexible tactics to survive and achieve their tactical aims. To add onto this aspect, Clausewitz also recognized the lethality of this modern way of warfare and stated that modern wars should vitalize individual energies as far as the weapon permits and cease to use men like simple machines. This was truly a step in increasing the scope of individualism in the state of war.

5. On War: Individualism and the Military in war (of landed infantry)

2009-08-09T06:26:00.000-07:00

I wish to examine the correlation between Individualism and the Military in the situation of war(of landed infantry). I ask, "Is it correct to say that collectivism has always dominated over individualism when it comes to the situation of war?" I argue that collectivism has always dominated over individualism in the military sphere but individualism is possible and increasingly cultivated (albeit of a compartmentalized kind) in the modern battlefield. So it seems logical to go on to ask: How is this possible? And what does this compartmentalized individualism "look" like?

I understand Individualism as a socio-political concept that manifests itself in certain positive traits such as self-reliance and independence. In the extreme, it can come to mean that an individual's goals and interest comes to take center stage and can supercede and dominate over the goals and interests of the collective and culminate in a form of a "self-interested" individual. Thus the concept of individualism surely is in sharp contrast with all that we associate with the military sphere with its culture of conformity and strong group identity.

So the peculiar form of compartmentalized individualism that I will be referring to in this discussion is one that focuses on the increased importance of self-reliance and scoped decision-making. But the individual's social identity is still fixed within the group identity and the individual's goals and interests still lay second fiddle to those of the collective due to the fundamental mission-based nature of the military sphere. But it is important to take note here that just because the individual's goals and interests are dominated over, it does not mean that soldiers are cannon-fodder. In fact in democratic cultures, we find that the emphasis on taking care of the well-being of the soldier is increasingly important. I seek to examine the validity of my argument through the various epochs of military history. We begin with the Phalangite era when the importance and dominance of group tactics come to crush over the effectiveness of individual skirmishing. This era clearly puts the idea of collectivism over individualism as the soldier turns himself into a part of a mechanized killing machine. He was a sum of parts. Simple pyschology proved to successfully condition the phalangite as the man in the unit was "pushed" forward by the legs behind him and assured by the sarissas all around him. Perhaps individualism was only displayed by army commanders who required guile and tactics in order to lead his men to victory. But the bulk of the efficient Macedonian, then Roman and later Frankish pikemen all proved the unconquerable efficiency of the collective in that era of the Phalanx. When we move onto the era of gunpowder and marching armies, the inaccuracy of the dominant weapon was a limiter. This technological limiter made drilled rank and file volley fire a more advantageous way of fighting. Also, drilled rank and file and facing down cannon fire made for the necessity of instilling iron discipline. The soldiers needed to be more afraid of their officers than the opposite side so that commanders could wield their men to face off, exchange volleys with the opposition and march over to claim land all in the face of exploding gunpowder and walls of lead. Thus collectivism triumphed out of necessity and efficiency over Individualism again in this era.

When firearms became more accurate, individualism became to grow in importance. This was heralded with the advent of riflemen as opposed to musketeers even during the previously discussed era of gunpowder and marching armies. Individualism hit a wall again during the stalemate engagements of WW1. This time the efficiency of technology was a limiter on individualism as tactics that were still rooted in the Nineteenth century could not keep up with the new surgically efficient killing machine gun. Commanders went about planning with an outmoded expectation of “good soldiering" which led to millions of lives wasted as cannon fodder. Numbers and human waves of charges called for little need for individualism. Too much thought-process could jeopardize the charge in fact and leave already committed comrades stranded ahead. A bolt out of the blue, storm-troopers were to prove a display of individualism and bravery intended to break the stalemate but could not counter the general macro-situation of the poorly coping battlefield tactics of the era. (I pause here to insert the clause that I have a sinking suspicion that in the novel new theatre of air combat, individualism flourished. To what extent and why, I cannot conclusively say now because admittedly, my knowledge in this area is insufficient to pose any coherent argument. I shall investigate further. :P )

Past the static lines of WW1,scattered group tactics grew in importance and pitched battles faded away in importance in WW2. Commanders came to recognize that decentralized fighting required more individualism. The movement away from pitched battles meant that warfare became more and more dynamic and ever new circumstances needed split-second decision-making and self-reliance from soldiers on the ground.

Move over to the modern armies of today's battlefields and we see that modern combatants face an even greater array of threats and opportunities. The need for co-ordinated arms warfare in the modern battlefields has also brought the share of decision-making increasingly down into the hands of the individual soldier (notably small unit leaders). Yet another a post-WW2 phenomenon, the advent of asymmetrical warfare also places emphasis on the guile, devotion and tactics of the individual soldier. The importance of compartmentalized individualism has never bewn stronger...

The question of "Effective Sovereignty"

2009-07-25T21:45:00.000-07:00

Brought some kids to HACA'09 last thursday and this was one of the questions which arose during the presentation round. "Is UN Intervention in line with its role of safeguarding of state sovereignty?"

The students answered that on the grounds of effective sovereignty arising from social contract, a state would forfeit its right to effective sovereignty if it worked the ill sufferings of its people. But this statement is iffy. In the perfect scenario, the people confer the legitimacy of power unto the ruling party. But this is problematic because a social contract assumes that all parties in power come about by voluntary and consent. This however is not always the case as parties can wrestle their way to power and then dominate the populace with a monopoly of force. A social contract is not always existent. So from a realist point of view, this particular stance of their's is swept under the rug.

However we should judge the argument on the school on which it is formulated. Thus we will now apply the liberal lens. We move onto examine if the UN grounds of intervention is in line with its role of safeguarding state sovereignty. I say yes although some may argue that UN intervention on the grounds of HR violations puts the rights of the individual above those of the nation-state. However if we delve deeper, we find this not to be the case and instead both are reconcilable in true nature. To this, we turn to the rightful scope of UN intervention which is limited in nature. The aims of UN intervention is to put a stop to HR violations. It does not intervene to take over a country and operate as its state. Thus I see this as a utilitarian liberal action, which serves to achieve the greatest good with a little "evil".

Next, we look from the liberal HR lens and analyze the situation. The party in power and its people are all equal as human beings under the HR lens. Thus they do not have any inherent rights over and above their people. By acting contrary to this, they are in effect performing a violation of HR as a private individual. Were it a usual civilian act of transgression then they would be trialled as a citizen of the state under its laws. But since a HR violation by a party or individual in power is directed towards a large group of people and trangresses International Law, thus they then would be rightfully trialled under International Law. Thus it is not so much as a question of an individual's rights over the State's but rather an affirmative action of the equality of all individuals' rights.

Now lastly, a Realist sprinkling of power politics come into play. Authoritarian regimes or ruling individuals with authoritarian tendencies may argue that liberals are transgressing their own rules by intervention and scream bloody murder when they see UN-backed troops crashing into their backyards to arrest them. The simple fact of the matter is that the ones with the muscle can decide the rules and what matters. At the end of the day, it really does not matter as much what you feel is "right" when the current reality of international politics and law is now liberal in stance. Man has always used his fist to protect his ideas and his fellow kind.

3. Mein Kampf: Hitler on the State (a Folkish state, education and military service)

2009-07-25T01:06:00.000-07:00

Hitler goes about to clear up certain "misconceptions" of the state. He is idea of what a Folkish state should be is highly "ethno-centric" and asserts that the state is not simply a more or less voluntary grouping of people under a government power. In the modern corruption, the state no longer exists to serve men; men exist in order to worship a state. Thus it is not an end but a means. It is the premise for the foundation of a higher human culture.

However, the state's highest state is the preservation and intensification of the race as a community of physically and psychically homogeneous creatures, this then is the fundamental condition of all human cultural development. The perils of racial mixing as put forth by Hitler have already been discussed in the previous posting. His German Reich must embrace all Germans and assemble and preserve the most valuable of basic racial elements in this people so as to slowly but surely raise them to a dominant position.

The Folkish state must then undertake certain "positive interventions" into the lives of their citizens. Firstly, Hitler states that it raise marriage from the level of a continuous defilement of the race and give it the consecration of a institution which produces images of the Lord and not half-apes. It must declare unfit of propagation those who are visibly sick and diseased or mentally handicapped.

Education focuses on physical training for a citizen with firm character and strength is more valuable than an intellectual weakling. Boxing is to be encouraged as it imbues and nurtures the spirit of attack, lightning decisions and trains the body in steel dexterity. Once the German child passes through school, it does not mean that the state's right to supervise its young citizens suddenly ceases. This right is a duty and is equally present at all times. Education for the males in its broad outlines serve as a preparation for future military service. Only then will the army be the rightful last and highest school of patriotic education. Whereas for females, it culminates in their role as future mothers.

The German soldier must have superior training in peacetime and have self-confidence in his superiority and the invincibility of his people which will not be lost even in the terror of the greatest battles. During military service, the boy will be transformed into a man and learns to obey and later command. His citizen's diploma is earned by completion of his military service which admits him to public activity and his health certificate confirms his physical health for marriage.

2. Mein Kampf: Hitler on Nation and Race

2009-07-23T04:13:00.000-07:00

Hitler's writings on Nation and Race are a one-dimensional reading of Nietzsche's philosophy of the Uber-mensch.

The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his own greatness. Only the born weakling can view this as cruel. In nature, you will never find a fox who in his inner attitude might, for example, show humanitarian tendencies toward geese. Nature's daily struggles are always a means for improving a species' health and power of resistance is a cause of higher development.

The result of all racial crossing is the lowering of the level of the higher race and physical, intellectual regression is the beginning of a slowly but surely progressing sickness.

We can divide mankind into three groups, the founders, the bearers and the destroyers of culture. True genius which is found in founders is always inborn and never cultivated, let alone learned. The founders of all progressive human culture and civilizations are Aryans. The Aryan founders also possess a self-sacrificing will to give one's personal labor and of necessary one's own life for others is most strongly developed. However, for the formation of such higher cultures, the existance of lower human types is essential as a precondition. As such is natural, the strong dominates the weak and directs his energies for their mutual good.

The mightiest counterpart to the Aryan is the Jew. Their instinct for self-preservation is most developed and no other people have gone through greater upheavals and remained unchanged. Their sense of solidarity is not positive either since it is based on the very primitive herd instinct. This primitive heard instinct only exists in the face of danger and dissipates into self-quarreling once any danger is over.

1. Mein Kampf: Hitler on Propaganda

2009-07-21T20:47:00.000-07:00

I am currently reading Mein Kampf (Finally! This is a book that I have been intellectually salivating for since the time that I was in JC) As of now, my comments about this book are as follows, "Intellectually uninspiring but highly important as it is historically revealing from hindsight." What am I to expect? I knew all along that Hitler was no intellectual. But still, there are many important points to highight.

Having learnt much from the "superior" war propaganda being unleashed upon the German soldiers in WW1, Hitler argues on how to perfect the art of Propaganda:

Is propaganda a means or an end? It is a means and must therefore be judged with regard to its end. It must consequently take a form calculated to support the aim which it serves.

The German nation was involved in a struggle for a human existence and the purpose of war propaganda should have been yp support this struggle; its aim to bring about victory.

When nations on this planet fight for existence.....then all considerations of humanitarianism or aesthetics crumble into nothingness. As such, these two concepts are inapplicable to propaganda.
Propaganda must be addressed always and exclusively to the masses. It must attract the attention of the crowd by form and color. Its function lies in calling the masses' attention to certain facts, processes and necessities.

Consequently, the greater the mass it is intended to reach, the lower its purely intellectual level will have to be. This is because receptivity of the masses is veyr limited. thier intelligience is small but thier power of forgetting is enormous.

It was absolutely wrong to make the enemy ridiculous (as the German authorities did in WW1) becuase actual conflict with the enemy would arouse an entirely different conviction and the results would be devastating. By contrast, British war propaganda rightfully prepared thier side for the terrors of war and thus helped to preserve them from disappointments.

Next, propaganda is not to weight the rights of different people but to exclusively emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for. It is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly.

This sentiment and message should not be complicated but bery simple and all of a piece. This way, it does not lead to no half-statements that might have given rise to doubts.

As a whole, all pieces of propaganda must have a common outline and never depart from it. This then must be performed with steady, consistent emphasis which would allow our final success to mature.

Up next, Hitler on Race and Nation

4. On War: The differentiating conditions of Banded fighting from Individual fighting

2009-07-18T23:00:00.001-07:00

Why then did man and how then did man come to fight in bands from the initial state of one-on-one fighting? First, we need to explore the reasons why man need and want to engage in Banded fighting? There are two prime reasons. Firstly, it is the need to improve one's state of relative strength. Man in banded fighting are stronger than any individual. Co-operation accords a group of man greater strength which translates into many resultant benefits such as the increase in their chances for individual survivability and their success rates (just to name two). Secondly, man come together in fight in bands because of a commonality in interests which springs forth from social units. In tribes, ancient man may have been unrelated in blood but only in territory and they would still logically combine their efforts to achieve their common goal of fighting to repulse an invader for example. The other social unit of the family makes for easier explanation since all species of animals fight to protect and ensure the success of their genetic line.

Now we move onto the differentiating conditions which exist in Banded fighting as unique and distinct from Individual fighting. The first such condition is Leadership. As social psychologists rightfully observe and assert, even between two people, a system of social dominance is established. Leadership among man who unite to fight on the same side can take the form of formal or informal. As Webster provides, it would also be buttressed by the charismatic appeal of the leader or the legal-rational authority of the leader. Leadership is what transforms a mass of weapon-wielding men into a unit. Leadership also brings into the group of man functional organization and hierarchies.

A second differentiating condition would be ideology which operates as a tool for unification and offers direction and motivation to the men. This is highly important and effective since it is beyond the material and operates on the emotive and basal instincts of men. The banded fighting unit with ideology can be better counted on to "bear their swords in the cold".

Sometimes individuals do fight with the conviction of ideologies, you may argue. And I rightfully agree. However, only in a banded fighting unit can ideology truly flourish. This is largely due to the effects of the next differentiating condition which is group-think which reinforces self-right and in turn may blur judgment and increase risk-taking. Another effect of group-think is to heighten "Other-ing" which strengthens group culture. Group-culture is crucial to the banded fighting unit as it unites them mentally and develops exclusive kinship within the unit in the form of a symbolic code of arms and a unit name for example.

I shall move onto the next differentiating condition which is closely related. As man come together to fight in banded units, they come to recognize certain values such as valor, self-sacrifice, cowardice and camaraderie for example. This is the appearance of concepts which are specific to banded fighting.They praise positive values and mock negative ones. Symbolic acknowledgment of positive values displayed in the heat of battle heightens the social hierarchy within the group and also gives birth to the "Warrior's Vanity" where a warrior seeks to win the admiration of his fellow warriors by his display of positive values. There is then the motivation to outdo each other and in turn win their fellow warriors' admiration which actually serves to improve the overall fighting ability of the unit.

The last differentiating condition is the development of group tactics. The need for close-order fighting tactics develops out of a need to kill the enemy without killing your own. Tactics also arises out of man's ability to adapt and observe. Man is a creature of observation and is able to learn from mistakes. Defeat prompts tactical response. Group Tactics (or rather , developing Group tactics) then improve the success rate of a banded fighting unit.

3.On War: Why do men fight?

2009-07-14T03:29:00.000-07:00

I sat and I pondered. I also talked and debated a bit with Uncle Chua and this is what I have gotten thus far. I understand fighting as the physical action of violence of one human against another human. Before I develop on how individual conflict escalates into banded conflict, we first have to consider what is man's propensity to fight which will be the content of this post. (take note that I am pursuing the question in the context of pre-modernity, pre-civilisation and maybe even pre-history.)

There are two types of propensities to fight: one innate and one forced. Let's explore the forced propensity to fight first. Ecology dictates that all environments are limited and a lack of resources (either real or perceived- and in this aspect, ideology can come into play and effectively alter and manipulate perceptions to its advantage. More will be discussed about ideology's role in mankind's escalation from individual conflict to banded conflict) threatens the individual's survival. This is heightened due to competition as posed by other individuals over scarce resources. At first, competition takes the form of a struggle till the point when the individual lacks any other means to achieve his acquisition of the resources which are vital to his survival, he then subsequently resorts to violent means and engages in fighting. (more on the seemingly flawed modern rational-economic lens used to account for the forced propensity to fight later)The individual who is forced to fight due to ecology fights till he reaches a safe zone whereby he can sufficiently provide for himself. Thus it is an action with limits.

Next, I shall move onto the natural propensity to fight. The origins of such a mental make-up is not easily understood. Sure, science tells us that the seat of aggression is located in our lower brain and that such impulses are subject to control from our higher brain. However, we cannot explain the inexplicable natural propensity for violence that some individuals display. Neither would religious explanations such as original sin suffice. Thus I shall just leave it as a real possibility that some individuals have a higher natural propensity for violence. Such individuals would soon develop a worldview that "might makes right" in an environmental with no policing repercussions. As long as such individuals could successfully fend off reprisals and successfully acquire what he set out to fight for, "might makes right" would make sense. Then as Uncle Chua has greatly input, Greed would factor into the issue and this would move the individual to further pursue violence as a means to an end. Such individuals may fight for the pure fun of it and like the ancient horse people of the steppe. Rational CBA may also factor into their decided action to fight since parasitism benefits them greater than rape and pillage on a long term scale. Hence such parties would be involved in raiding.

Let me digress for a bit and explain about how the seemingly flawed modern rational-economic lens used to account for the forced propensity to fight actually still holds true. Survival is still the ultimate motivation. In fact, Keagan's argument of the Aztecs who fought to capture human sacrificial tokens to their Gods. They were of an abundant society and had no immediate threat to survival. But yet, I argue that they were motivated by survival. Why? This is because the Aztecs were fighting in order to gain human sacrificial tokens which would then appease their Gods, if not their world would cease to be. Survival? Yes. Even if you argue that the priests and noble class did not in fact buy entirely into the idea that the Gods would cease the mechanics of the universe unless they were fed, the motivation of fighting would still be survival. The ruling Aztecs would have to set into motion fighting in order to keep alive their way of living and worldview which in turn validates their political survival.

Whatever the type of propensity to fight, the intermediate goals of fighting can converge and blur. These goals are to gain (this includes any gains from basic stealing to routing and even to the non-material dimension such as the political effects of war-mongering), to reclaim, to settle disputes, to defend and sometimes for the pure thrill and exhilaration of it(where the individual is pre-disposed to violence). Sometimes an individual is forced to fight to steal in order to survive. Sometimes a bloodthirsty individual is forced to fight to defend himself from a reprisal. As stated above, the intermediate goals of fighting can converge and blur.

But the ultimate end in fighting differs from the forced individual to the greedy/blood-lust individual. The forced individual would only fight a limited fight. This means that the act of fighting would only be carried out if it serves as a means to an end. Whereas the blood-lust individual is capable of fighting an unlimited fight. He could be fighting just for the fun of it (fighting as a means and end in itself).

2. On War: Clausewitz's "On War" and John Keagan's "A history of Warfare"

2009-07-12T21:59:00.000-07:00

War must never be seen as a purpose to itself, but as a means of physically forcing one's will on an opponent ("War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means.")

War as a purpose to itself presupposes that man is biologically driven to warring. This is an argument which is hard to make and sustain. However, Keagan then adds that Clausewitz did not factor in that war is also a cultural instrument and a cultural act. It is not entirely governed by the dynanism of all-imposing political forces. Indeed, it can be governed by static, revisionist forces such as culture.
In western military history, this was observed in the aristocracies' undying grip on the honor and exclusivity of the idea of the "Flower Calvary" which resulted in disastrous showings at Balaclava (from "War and Civilisation: Blood and Iron") for example, a prime example of culture obstinately preserving a style of warring despite real political realities. This was again demonstrated by the Japanese Samurai which had effectively employed gunpowder for realpolitik and then forcefully reinstated their Samurai way of warring once gunpowder had achieved its purpose. However, is this then not political? As Keagan later explains, the Samurai could accomplish this as there were no gunpowder weapon wielding enemies at their doorsteps.? Is this not an absence of a particular political reality which allowed them to put culture above politics?

Secondly, I agree more with Weigly who states that war is not so much a continuation of political commerce but also one of political bankrupty. This would resonate with what Frantz Fanon put forth and many freedom-fighters such as the LTTE and the IRA who have found that peaceful demands are empty and achieve little. Their appreciation of their own state of political bankruptcy then forces war upon them as an additional means to continue their political commerce.

Lastly, my understanding of the concept “Politics” is perhaps more inclusive and al-encompassing than Clausewitz’s and Keagan’s. Thus I see Keagan’s argument of incidences of cultural primacy in the preservation and promotion of various warring styles not as arguing against Clausewitz but adding on. Such historical experiences that he highlighted are highly political as they all involve and revolve around the quinessential element of politics, Power. After all, the Japanese generals who united Japan successfully and reinstated the Cult of the Sword only because they had the political means to do so. And later when confronted with the American fleet and forced to modernize some 250 years later, the political necessity won out and dictated the style of warring. As uncle Chua rightfully puts it, the image of the desert raider brandishing his sword before an unimpressed Indiana Jones in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and getting nonchalantly blazed down proves the potency and uncompromising pressure of real politics on the style of warring.

Indeed, war in the political realm is a political instrument of violence that is undertaken to continue political commerce or break political bankrupty in order to achieve power (of its many forms) over other parties or in issues.

1. On War: sec3 SS: Chap 6

2009-07-12T19:09:00.000-07:00

There were three reasons cited in my department's notes for the causes of conflicts. They were 1. for resources 2. for territory and 3. over ideological differences. The notes then stated that ideological differences were the quinessential reason why parties would end up in conflict. I disagree strongly and maybe I am taking too much offence since it serves the argument at thier point in education. But yet, it seems so wrong to me so I must state my case.

Firstly, war and conflict are totally two different concepts. War is armed conflict and presupposes a significant number of casualties for it to qualify as war. Conflict is a much looser idea and thus should not be used for the purposes of such a statement.

Secondly, the argument that ideological differences are the quinessential reason why parties end up in conflict seems to be supported only by the Democratic Peace Theory (DPT) and only holds true between Democracies. This lack of interstate war between democracies may only exist because I would argue firstly that since Democracy had "won" the Cold War and has since had the benefits of emplaced and established conflict management devices (trade sanctions, international dialogue mechanisms, Supranational and regional organisations and the list goes on and on) I wonder if the USSR had won. Would the "Iron Fist" of the "Iron Curtain" not also be successful in dowsing any potential interstate flare-ups and prevented large scale conflict with its authoritarian ways? Also, Democracies are only less likely to war with Democracies. What about the other camp? Two authoritarian states may clash. And you may argue that at least the DPT supports the essential claim. I say no. Why? Because nothing is monotheistic in color and hue, especially when it closes to ideologies which are colored by context and unique social and political histories. So to say similar ideologies would firstly be a huge no-no to me and to further the argument and say that there is such a thing as ideological similarities is certainly pushing the logical coherency of an argument too far.

Lastly, ideologies are evolving creatures of the mind. Even if I assume that two ideologies have a common origin or common point in thier trajectories, they are definitely not asymmetrical for eternity. We often forget that ideologies bend to our will and are often tokens of what we really stand for. Indeed, the real tangible concerns like oppression, resources and territory are what counts in sparking a conflict. Ideologies are tools that justify our claims and unite us under a common flag. Case in point, I refer to the "Contigent Democrats" theory. Conflicts exist in states at all levels and the "Contingent Democrats" theory rightfully shows and assets that groups will push for democracy within society only when it serves thier position at that moment. Even if they were supposedly the democratising force, they would renounce democracy if it were in conflict with thier interests. Thus this shows the reality that real tangible concerns bite us at our cores. They rumble when our tummies are unfed. They bleed when we are cut. We cannot deny them. They are the real undenieable facts of life. Ideologies on the other hand, often just serve to help us deny.

Introduction

2009-06-09T02:40:00.000-07:00

Summer is such a beautiful time of the year. Flowers bloom. Fruits ripen. (describe children tossing their books and pencils aside as they ran into the streets to watch the parade floats pass their houses. Welcoming the arrival of a carnival.) Carnivals come very often to (town name) the whole year round. (town name) is the best place for entertainers to entertain. (town name)'s folks are the most (welcoming/ helpful/ cheerful/ fun) Performers make a lot of (money/revenue) in (town name. They love this place so much and sometimes they never leave. Even though the folks are (fun), they have a very close relationship with God because he is the one making the town rich. They are very fervent Catholics. (Describe their resentment towards taboos, blasphemy)The crops never dies out. The river never dries. Disease comes and goes but never stays long making the people strong, rich and prosperous. They ostracize/ cast out/ exile/ banish criminals. Sometimes when it gets too personal, they tale the law into their own hands. Because it is their town and the people do all they can to keep it safe and prosperous.

Loud thuds of long handled hammers knocking nails into the earth. Large men hoisting up canvases and ropes. (Describe a tent falling apart)Putting together tents can be quite frustrating and chaotic sometimes. Especially when you are missing a few helping hands. (At the corner, fat Jim sleeps. Slapped by his brother) The site of the carnival is by the sea by the cliff. The winds bring the fresh scent of the ocean waters to (brighten up/ refresh) carry the workers' sweat away and (revitalize/cool) their bodies.

Away from all the noise, the rustles of construction, at the corner of the cliff stood a tall white steeple. A light house. It used to be busy. A place to warn incoming ships of the sharp coastal rocks.

Franz Kafka- The Fasting Artist

2009-05-16T23:25:00.000-07:00

Another short story marvel. Here goes.

Can you be honest about a dishonesty? To be perfectly transparent, I did register a hint of disappointment at the end of this tale when I realised the truth.

The man was to me, a fraud. He was honest about a dishonesty. This dishonesty was his whole life. It informed others of him. Can one thing make a man? Can one thing break a man? Yes, it does and it did. It broke and hollowed him out to the core.

He never wanted to fast. It was forced upon him and yet often he adopted a "holier than thou" attitude which was best brought out by comparison with the guards who doubted him and yet they couldn't have lasted the night and executed their duties if they had not been nourished.

Yet again, was it a true blue dishonesty? Or did he choose this fate because he was simply too choosy by nature.

Yet the paradox continues for he is honest about it. He is honest about the rules and formalities. He sticks to his craft/ art lawfully and is even ambitious about it. Is this akin to Kant's conception of "A truly virtuous act" whereby it is born out of duty (which he sees his art as) and not personal inclination.

The last point that struck me is how we are all innately attracted to the gory. We all seek and obtain some form of perverse pleasure from experiencing rationed-out and controlled fear. He is the embodiment of what would be. He is the gory spectacular which would have no meaning if we did not feel this particular inclination.
He is still an enigma to me. I hope one day, I will gather the full picture.

The Circle

2009-05-14T23:49:00.000-07:00

Love is selfish
Only within our circle, are we both happy
If we even know what happiness is
Once out, we are no longer on the same track
My happiness with someone else makes you sad
And vice versa

Our happiness together deprives others
If we even know what happiness is
This would make a bad song
As many thing in life do
I ask myself, do I know what love is
I dare say that I don't
I know what it means to love
But of Love, it eludes me
I only know when I am within our circle
Yet when I am, I am blind
When I leave, I am bitter
I do not know what Love is

Our love exists in the circle
Yet it lives in reality
Within our circle, all is possible
In reality, possible is not all
Our circle collides with other circles
Each testing its limits and strengths
Reality exists in time
Time, time binds us
I wanted to be with her
It was too soon
Time, it controls us
Because we will die
So we let time play us
It dictates us
Too soon, too late
It speaks to us
Not right, good or perfect
We measure ourselves on its scale
It is timing
Good timing makes the good "perfect"
Bad timing makes it not to be
Yet we were the masters of time
We gave it meaning and set it free upon ourselves

Time, when you have more of it, it becomes pointless
When you have little of it, time is all you think about
Not so much what you can do with it
But how it slips away
You do so much yet all the while at the back of your mind, you worry
How it slips away

Time, does not make how you feel
If you don't feel how you are supposed to, it is a bad feeling
Others get with the time's programme
If you don't, you feel bad
Yet again, we have lost control

Full Nelson

2009-05-10T18:55:00.000-07:00

I won't say that this Indie film is good. It is just that it leaves food for thought. Of course it helps that Ryan Gosling is the lead.

But onto the "smart stuff"..... He says "One thing doesn't make a man" or so he says.

This is true and false at the same time.

Dunne's addiction is but one thing. Yes, it does not make him. His mind, his teaching and many more aspects all make him. Not just that one thing. So this is true.

But yet it is so wrong. It is precisely the nature of that one thing which breaks him. As Epicurus would criticize, that one pleasure of his is not within his control. Worst still, it is beyond his control and controls him. Not only that, it also compromises all other pleasures (like having a meaningful relationship, like being able to function normally and healthily throughout the day)

Thus the danger is apparent to see as it is not the quantity but the nature of it all. The nature of one thing that may break a man.

Franz Kafka- The Metamorphsis

2009-04-30T19:34:00.000-07:00

What a great read. I think I have not been impressed thus far since "The Outsider" and that is one tough cookie to live up to. "The Metamorphsis" has left me with many thoughts and bugging questions and suspicions.

Gregory suffers from Alienation. And this alienation is multifarious in its dimensions. Firstly, he is alienated from himself. He has become something that he does not quite recognize. Even if he had not changed into a cockroach, he was already at a point of "non-self-recognition". He is alienated by who he is (who he has to be) from who he is and was. Secondly, Gregory is alienated from his family. Similarly, his biological metamorphsis only serves to highlight the fact that they had developed a complacency towards his generosity and had effectively typecast him as just the provider. Lastly, he is alienated from humanity due to the nature of his work which makes his never stay long enough anywhere to be of any impression and permanence. In effect, his travelling salesman occupation renders his existence among any community a nature of fleeting weightlessness.

Of course, the text is peppered with absurdity as well which always underlines such thought-provoking plots. But it is all true. The absurdity of pressing concerns/ practicalities still remains even though Gregory has had the worst happen to him. As a flailing cockroach which is struggling to understand and discover his biomechanics, he still has to contend with a supervisor which actually makes a house visit on account of him being late. Everyone suffers from wrong priorities in that particular part of the story and this really highlights how perceived importance triumphs over real importance.

Absurdity rears its ugly face once again later in the story when the "normalcy of the unusual" strikes. The family members show us that humans are all but creatures of habit and memory. We can get used to suffering. Is it too tiring to go on mourning forever? Is this a self-defense mechanism? Gregory's plight (which is highly unusual!) becomes normal in due time. Habit and memories then snuff all meaning out of his suffering till he feels himself redundant and guilty of being a burden. And that is when he goes through his last phase of the metamorphsis and becomes null.

Read this with the knowledge that for now this is just my interpretation of the text and I have not studied any prior analysis of it as of yet. I am sure once I have that I will be back eagerly to develop on this text more. :)

Miraculous coincidences

2009-04-09T21:39:00.000-07:00

Can you imagine when the universe was not yet in existence? When it was suspended in imaginary time.

If you think about how things come to be and the myriad of miraculous coincidences that have propelled or rather brought us to where we are now.

The fact that I can write this blog post. The fact that I can apply my cognitive reasoning. The fact that the atoms on my laptop are holding up with the strength of its bonds and not disintegrating. The fact that the moon is high in the sky and regulating the earth's waves.

And then I think about us. About our meat vessels, about our consciousness and witness-consciousness and how at our core, we are but a highly complex system of atomic systems. How at essence, we are integrating as a system of atomic systems with other atomic systems. How we must leave energy residues and parts of ourselves with everything that we interact with.

Our lives and all we hold dear are miraculous coincidences. Let us begin at the beginning or rather the point of non-being.

Imagine all (or rather the lack of all) before the "Big Bang", when all that was to be was suspended in imaginary time.

And then the universe expanded out into time and space as a hot, glowing fireball and rapidly cooled while it expanded. Protogalaxies contracted and began to break into fragments. Gravity then caused the fragments to contract even more and to become very hot as they compressed. Nuclear fusion then began within their cores.

Our solar system begins its birth dance as the cloud of interstellar gas and dust condenses. As the cloud collapsed, a dense, slowly rotating core was formed. This would become the sun.

Our nascent earth experienced numerous collisions with asteroids. This produced so much energy that our earth formed a molten core that was composed mostly of iron. the lighter elements then floated to the surface and created our rocky mantle. Our early earth's surface was molten, it had no solid surface.

The atmosphere consisted mainly of nitrogen and carbon dioxide. photosynthesizing bacteria were not present as of yet. We had no oceans either. Most of the water that is present on the earth;s surface was released from the mantle in volcanic eruptions and had come originally from collisions with comets ("dirty ice balls").

Our surface cooled enough for the oceans to form and created a hospitable environment. Amino acids, on the tails of comets that brushed the earth's atmosphere, blessed us with the building blocks from which proteins are formed.

Amino acids and the other organic chemicals were present in the primordial oceans only in small quantities. Darwin suggested a highly likely warm pond where chemical evolution took place. RNA (the primitive form of DNA) then could form. The first living organisms were primitive algae and bacteria.

It then took 3 billion years for multicellular life forms to evolve on earth.

The Monkey in the Mirror

2009-03-31T05:36:00.000-07:00

This book has added onto my knowledge and inquiry into the conceptualization of the "soul" in humans.

I stated previously that to understand why and how we came about with our conceptualization of the soul. I then had to ask what makes us so special.

Previous probes have equipped me with certain factors: namely language (both spoken and written).

This new book has given insight into how exaptation (the incidental hero of our 'evolution') has allowed us the ability to find a novel use of our structurally-lower vocal chords to produce speech. Spoken language put us above and beyond other creatures who had and have written language. With spoken language, we were then able to build upon our essentially wonderful ability to re-conceptualise the world around us in abstract logic. This was also another "Big Bang" in terms of cultural-releasing.

We also are gifted with extended consciousness, the ability to add the awareness of the past and future into the mix and factor in such variables into decision-making.

Which came first? Symbolism in language which graduated to abstract meaning to language which in turn helped us scale greater cognitive heights or the ability to cognitively re-conceptualize our world? I guess we will never know. It may forever be a case of chicken and the egg.

Yet again, I find cause to praise our consciousness and the ability to be conscious of our consciousness. (which Satre may deem weak) Weak it may be but still it allows us so much cognitive scope and possibilities that probably makes us the most dangerous animal on earth.

So yet again, I find little reason to purport that we are spiritually privileged creatures. Indeed, we are the product of lucky exaptations and rugged ancestry. But given the power we hold over the rest of terran life, environment and this planet's possible trajectories, I find the question "What is the SOUL?" even more pertinent.

On The Sopranos: Everything I know I learned from TV

2009-03-16T02:26:00.000-07:00

Only thing interesting that I gathered from this chapter is about how Pyschoanalysis provides us with aspect-seeing metaphors and how These are metaphors that allow us new ways of looking at and thinking about ourselves. Psychoanalytical analysis cannot be tested right or wrong.

By contributing evil to a personality and mental disorder, Rowlands posits that we cannot achieve meaning in our lives by pitting ourselves against evil anymore, not in this modern world.

But I think this is a commendable point of view that should not be taken too far. By offering help to the "evil", we distinguish what a person is and does from his true nature. Deep down, everyone is "fixable" and can be restored to the order that Plato prescribes (of Reason, Spirit and Appetite).

Of which, Tony Soprano is not. He is evil because according to Plato's view, his order is not in the correct form. Thus he is fractured and he has to put on different faces and accomodate conflicting actions in conflicting situations.

On Buffy: Everything I know I learned from TV

2009-03-16T01:49:00.000-07:00

A nice book with which freshness into philosophical inquiry is brought in with the help of some pretty nonacademic language features and phrases. :)

Rowlands interestingly defines modernity as a tendency in all of us to swing towards some pretty conflicting life philosophies, namely: individualism, relativism and voluntarism. So basically we are pretty screwed up.

Buffy is the first to be examined. And he defines her rightfully as a pre-modern girl (with her inability to avoid the obligation of being the slayer) living in a modern world.

This is made even more obvious by her existential counterparts, the vampires whose lives are "light" (read Milan Kundera, "The incredible lightness of being") and no obligations bind them (because our consciousness is what allows us to act and choose and it lies outside the natural order and therefore also avoids the realm of obligation, as Sartre supports).

The next point that Rowlands puts forth is something that I have argued before. It concerns the positive nature of death and the mutually-defining phenomenon of life and death, the infinite made finite by the finite.

Thus, death is Buffy's gift as it is all of our's as it allows us to permanently become our actions by stopping the process of becoming and be fixed and for the first time anything.

Thus our actions, Rowland(as I do) asserts, does have bearing and that is why obligations should bind as we owe it to ourselves to leave positive legacies behind.

Then of course the problem is that modernity, with the help of relativism makes everything "small" and very little of everything in life is left "big". So it is tougher on us on the surface to make significance and meaning to our lives as relativism deludes us into believing that everything and every value is not fixed.

4. The Eccentric Nature of Meaninglessness

2009-02-20T07:34:00.000-08:00

A phone call. I pick it up and listen to the shocking story that my friend has to share. And I listen. I become the listening ear. I absorb. I console and the cancer that is Human fragility and sadness within me hears its beckoning and grows in strength.

Through the tale that I am now acquainted with, I remember the horrid truth that we, in fact, are not free. Not free in the least. The only thing that we think we have control and a right to control over is not ours. It is not free. Our lives are not free to us. By virtue of living and association, we owe our lives to those who care for us and the way in which we choose to conduct and carry out our lives is not free.

I hang up after I have done all that I can, which in this case is pretty much nothing. I am spent.

3. The Eccentric Nature of Meaninglessness

2009-01-26T06:43:00.001-08:00

It is amazing how we get irritated by something once it is within our proximity for an extended period of time. No matter how much we used to yearn for it, how we used to crave it, how we used to love it. Its close proximity soon irks us and gets under our skin. Why do we react in such a manner? As if we are selfish by nature. As if we are self-serving and only look out for "numbero uno" in whatever situation. That our true selves are incorruptible in its loyalty to ourselves. Case in point, I can't stand myself. In my solitude, I am all I have to handle. Yet, it is indeed testimony to the human psyche that I can get tired of myself. I can't stand my mental voice. My witness-consciousness can't stand the self-pitying nature of my "self". They can't coexist yet they have nowhere else to exist. What strange and uncomfortable bed-fellows dwell in my private realm...

So I sit here in my chair not being able to stand myself. I am thirsty. I have a sore-throat. I have a rumbling stomach. The multitude of sensations and biological registers and imperatives make their way to my mind and shout at me till they are hoarse. They wish to be satisfied. But I like to sit and pretend that I am but a corpse. Let me change that, a carcass. Yes, I like to lay and pretend and wait till they start to lose interest as my mental secretary at the desk chews on her pen in a sultry manner and repeatedly delays their attempts at getting my attention. And then just when they are about to leave, I announce that the manager will see to them now. His important conference call has ended.

My mind draws back to the figure that I crossed on the way home. She was attractive. I knew it. She knew that I knew that she was attractive. Her curvaceous figure flavors the uninteresting air around her aggressively through the air as she strutted past me. Her fragrance hung lightly in the breeze and yet stung my senses sharply as we crossed each other. But I didn't look. At that cosmic moment, it was quite laughable to take note that she registered an element of disbelief. The point is that I don't look anymore. There is no point. I don't look, I don't think nor do I consider. Just as there is no point in dreaming so I don't dream anymore as well. Evolution and efficiency works in that way. Only the necessary functions continue. Selection and survivability dictates that dreams and desire only matter for the living.

2. The Eccentric Nature of Meaninglessness

2009-01-26T02:58:00.000-08:00

Another three hours of basking and I have effectively spent myself. So I stop which is a good thing since at this point, I am truly sick of myself and the music that I produce. What seemed like a sweet and rapturous note is now enough to cause me to convulse in debilitating nausea. So the bass notes and melancholic melody stop harshly. They would be back tomorrow as sure as I would wake tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn.

I brush my hand through my hair that was once strong and flick off the residual rain drops from the downpour earlier. As I perform this attempt at grooming myself, I catch a glimpse of a stranger in the puddle from the corner of my eye. He looks a despicable figure and strikes a frail presence despite his clearly robust and athletic frame. I study him from head to toe and then once more like a scavenger eyeing a thrashing animal in its death spasm. He reeks of pathetic. His lackluster slit eyes betray his lack of conviction in life. I move closer to the puddle and indulge in this voyeurism with an unhealthy appetite. Oh, this poor sullen human specimen. Then I realize that he is me.

At this ghastly realization, I fall upon my bottom and sit as if shell-shocked. I rock myself slowly and surely back into my mundane reality. I never did realize that my bolts had come loose. That I had lost rein of sanity. I was under the illusion that I had kept it well-nourished and reined in my stables of fortitude. But now, I came to know that all along, it must have been buckling and pulling at its shackles with its animalistic brute strength. Day by day, its sheer determination meant that it was pitted in a seesaw battle against the cold iron shackles of my pathetic clinging grasp. It must have torn its flesh and cut itself to the raw bone. I get slightly woozy at the mentally conjured sight of bright red and gurgling blood and then bruised and infected flesh wounds. But despite the surely immense pain, it must have found me and my pathetic needy nature so contemptible that it persevered despite every screaming sub-molecule of its flesh. Oh, how grotesque I must be.

"Hey, mister. Are you ok?" a random stranger snaps me right back into the mundane reality that surrounds me and blows through my wet clothes. "......." I am unable to mouth a coherent response. It does not matter. He is not really interested in how I am doing. He has already moved on. He is one of those Samaritans who get more of helping others than the people that he has helped. So he carries on his way to surely rake up more spiritual points and "feel good points" so as to feed himself through the cold and lonesome nights. His silhouette cuts slowly across the grayish landscape. My eyes escort him out of sight and I get back on my feet. I pick up my cello, bury it in its case. I pick it up. And I place one feet in front of another and make my way to nowhere to do nothing.

1. The Eccentric Nature of Meaninglessness

2009-01-25T06:19:00.000-08:00

It starts to pour. At first, a light drizzle shifts into the sky and then it starts to pour as if mother nature was at first fickle but then she decided to punish this sordid week further. My leather shoes already stink from yesterday's debacle. Now, it is sure to be even more putrid after this blessing shower.

I scramble to collect and consolidate the coins in my hat and place my cello in its case to protect it from the rain. I have heard that all rain is acidic nowadays due to the pollution that we have wrecked upon mother nature. So it is her form of vengeance. Counting my coins in one hand and putting my sloth-like mind through its arithmetic paces, I shelter my instrument with my umbrella. After all, it is probably worth more than me and all my mental and physical possessions put together.

My paltry earnings come up to only $3.94. Not enough to feed myself fully and not enough to buy a sturdy enough rope to construct a noose either, I conclude. The rain patters down continuously and gets heavier. So the rain drops provide me with my only contact in weeks with kisses upon my cheeks and the droplets run teasingly down my nose bridge.

Have you ever stood for a long period in heavy rain before? I have not. But now that I am, let me warn you that it gets old really quickly. Nothing entertains you but the cascading and ebbing crescendo of the harsh descent of H20 molecules as they come crashing into the unyielding asphalt texture of our concrete jungle. But even if they are to be your sole source of entertainment, they are unwilling performers who possess no talent and desire to impress their captive audience. So I stand with nothing to wish for but the end of the rain. I suddenly realize that I did not notice when I slipped into such a moment-to-moment mode of existence. When did I become such a creature that was only content on breathing and to keep breathing? When did I lose sight of my ideals?

The rain stops as though it senses my sudden displacement and it is in conspiracy with the rest of human destiny to sedate me back into the norm of harsh mundane meaninglessness.

1. Truth (snippets from "Why Truth Matters" by Ophelia Benson)

2009-01-23T21:59:00.000-08:00

Most of us don't love the truth, not all of it, not all the time. In fact, many are not really interested in believing the truth. They might prefer it if their opinions turns out to be true.

When people say, "I am entitled to my opinion," they are speaking of their indifference and it would be simple rudeness to persist with the matter of inquiry.

People deal with unwanted truth in various ways. The simplest is internal denial. It was more viable in the past."

"The role of authority is to tell people what to believe and think and coercive and authoritarian but also liberating as it liberate people from the responsibility and hard work of thinking.

Of course it was to community and authority's advantage that everyone be on the same page, regardless of the truth in matter. This would ensure social cohesion and smooth operations.

Another way would to be cordon off certain ideas as taboo and sacred. Religion is the most obvious of such no-go areas.

Obfuscation, a tactic of post-modernists, would be to ask unanswerable questions to temporarily silence and divert.

Ultimately the truth is important to us but so are our needs and desires and hopes and fears. Without these, we would not even recognize ourselves. We want the truth but we also want to care, some of the things which we care about would invariably be threatened by the truth.

"Not wanting to know the truth can be a coping mechanism. It is not exactly denial but more like minimization or compartmentalization. But it often trains us in bad habits and we may get used to the wrong idea that truth is subject to the human will and manipulation by our will, thoughts and actions.

4. What is the Soul?

2009-01-22T20:56:00.000-08:00

Previously in the attempt to trace the realm and origin of the conception of the soul, I stumbled upon a roadblock (so as to speak). I asserted that "the existence of our Soul is given a push with Language and thus our Mind's Voice. Language arms our Mind's Voice with conceptual tools to term our experience, to give it meaning (direct or laden). Without Language, emotions and experiences would and may be stuck at basic feelings. Thus from here, we can see that Language (semantics) plays an important role in our interpretation of emotions and experience and thus our idea of our SOUL as well."

But I was wrong. Rather, I was too quick to conclude. After reading the chapter, "The Horminid that talked" by Maurizio Gentilucci and Micheal C. Corballis in "What makes us Human?" (Charles Pasternak, ED), I came to appreciate the significance of speech. Speech advanced communication and language from a primarily visual form (a "schematopoeia" that holds parallels between sound and meaning)to one that possessed the ability to arbitrary symbols and laden meanings. In fact, biologically only humans have adapted this "gift" of speech in bio-mechnical design (neocortical system developed or precise vountray control of the muscles of the vocal cords and tongue).

3. What is the soul?

2009-01-11T07:41:00.000-08:00

What is the soul? What is it without our conceptualisation of our heart as the source and center of our emo-spiritual being?

But of our heart, Ingrid Michealson sang of this,

"Have you ever thought about what protects our heart?

Just a rib-bone and various other parts.

So its fairly simple to cut through the mass and distort the muscle that makes us confess.

We are so fragile and our cracking bones makes noise.

And we are just breakable, breakable, breakable girls and boys."

2. What is the Soul? (The return of Relativism)

2008-12-30T07:25:00.003-08:00

Now this is a particularly hard topic and I am going to approach it this time with reference to Truth and the Soul. My investigation is going to focus on the process of distorted and manipulated truths from the outer interactions of the social ego (D) to the ego (C) to the "self" (B) to the witness-consciousness (A). Here I have a difficulty positioning my previous idea of the Soul and this will prove interesting. My main argument is that relativism exists in all dimensions of interaction within and outside of ourselves (as a composite identity of A, B, C and D). What then happens to the Truth and how can we regain it? My assertion is of a realist-rationalist approach of reflection and circumspection.

Before we embark on the processes, we must understand the various composite parts of our identity. Allow me to start with the witness-consciousness, which is known as the saksi-pratyaksa in Hindu philosophy. I have used the similar term because linguistically it makes a lot of sense to my understanding of it. However, I am not agreeing with the romantic notions of its origin. That much is out of my scope as a moral-realist.

Now what is the witness-consciousness, you may ask. Well, follow me with a little experiment and it will quickly be apparent. Tell yourself a definite truth statement. Next, tell yourself an untruth. That little voice which speaks out against your untruth is the witness-consciousness. Sometimes it speaks in the form of a tentative doubt-ridden pause in response to your untruth. The witness-consciousness is the part of you that knows all. It has witnessed all but is passive in a sense. It may "counsel" you in your deliberations but it is unable to affect your final decision. It is the "entity" to which we speak when we engage in self-justifying talk. But ultimately, we find that we cannot lie to our witness-consciousness. We may placate our "self" but we can never lie to our witness-consciousness.

This is the first level of story-telling in which we construct (or attempt to construct) before our witness-consciousness a more ideal image of ourselves.

When we engage in story-telling, we engage in self-justification of our actions and denial against the voice of our witness-consciousness. At the most basic level, story-telling is when we tell our witness-consciousness that we need what we want. Yes, it is oxymoronic for wants and needs are different in priority. But to be able to acquire what we want to better ourselves, we must need it. We must try to story-tell to our witness-consciousness that we need these things, not want them. So our acquisition of them are perfectly justifiable and then we can live with ourselves.

Our witness-consciousness is in essence truthful. In this quality, then lies the possibility for all truth. Indeed, our witness-consciousness acts as the source of radical doubt (Descartes: where the slightest suspicion of a doubt will be enough to make me reject any one of my beliefs.)

5. Positive Revenge: Bad Grace and a flash of optimism (Do we deserve happiness?)

2008-12-26T08:05:00.000-08:00

Bad Grace occurs when we are acting good begrudgingly and are not doing it out of the goodness of our hearts. Hence the outcome may be moral but the origin is not. When we do something begrudgingly, it is born out of injustice and unfairness. Partly we may be expecting something in return as well (be it material or an act of gratitude). Hence its origins are calculative.

In order to achieve Positive Revenge in the moral sense, we are to give of ourselves without the occurrence of Bad Grace. Bad Grace limits the good that the agent will do and in turn also places a burden upon the person who has benefited from the act of good.

This is something which I am highly conscious of now and am highly critical of myself for my past incidences of Bad Grace. But today in a very mundane setting, I found myself with Bad Grace once more.

I allowed two children of two different families to take a seat before me in the line. Their parents did not say a word of thanks. And wonders of all wonders, one mother even jumped my queue in the end though she had clearly stated that her son would go after me earlier. And there I was thinking: Hey! How come these people did not even say a word of thanks? How come she jumped me in the queue?

Bad Grace? Yes! But I did not react upon it though I did feel like stating it out so that I could enlighten them of the fact but then thought against it. Still, I am troubled by my reaction. Will be back to write more after I deliberate on this.

Meanwhile, I had a flash of optimism which I must admit has been more rare than a blue moon for a long time now. As human beings, I understand that we are not entitled to happiness and this is only right. We may not even deserve it but then I suddenly realized that we can be deserving of it. And the way to work towards being deserving of happiness is obvious: to do our sincere best to be good and deserving human beings.

4. Positive Revenge and "The Heart of Darkness" (Joseph Conrad)

2008-12-26T00:35:00.000-08:00

Through the novella, I came to confront "Positive Revenge" through the idea of Kurtz's brave and insane embrace of Death. Why Insane? Because it is against every biological imperative of survival that is programmed into our physical being. And this is our very natural reaction and aversion to death which later, I shall reveal to be but an anti-climatic and lackluster phenomenon.

Of Death, there are many kinds but the two of the gravest importance to me are of Physical Death (where we become null and inactive agents) and the Death of the Ego (symbolised as Kurtz when he willingly steps over the edge as opposed to the "Hesitant Foot" that Marlow presents. Indeed, Marlow still seeks to preserve himself, to still hope for benefits to himself and lacks the conviction.)

Conrad writes of the lackluster and anti-climatic struggle that we pit against Death.
Why is this the case? Because for all that we resist and run away from, death is pre-determined and indeed it is within our very nature itself to perish. In turn, in our escapism, we prioritize wrongly and place too much value on existence for its own sake. We drink at it as if it is a drug and forget that existence is nothing without deed and deed is nothing without death.

When our perishable Ego perishes, Legacy of deed is then all that is left. These are the forces that are set into motion by us and that which can exist into infinity. It is through our deed/s that we set our feet firm and renounce ourselves as "mere playthings of time". As shown through Kurtz's lover (which his death is almost continuous, never withdrawn from her by the passage of time), we should not be prone to forget, to get waylaid by obstacles and not prone to tire under the passage of time. True enough, our love for the good will ensure the execution of our deed/s and their persistence even after our deaths.

Of the phenomenon of Death, various factors come into play. First, I mention of "That which kills" and argue that from colorful and loud agents of death come great possibility for beautiful Positive Revenge.

The agent of Death can deliver its act as according to various reasons. It may be of chance. To which I stress the importance of actively seeking to enact Positive Revenge with every precious moment before the random executioner comes to rest on us its cleaver. That which kills can also come upon us out of carelessness and non-intention. Lastly, it may be of agenda. This is most often the case whereby the agent has knowledge of the consequences of its actions but still chooses the course of action nonetheless.

The second factor in the phenomenon of Death is the process by which the Ego comes to pass and becomes the deceased. The measure of a man is how he acts in Pain as opposed to Pleasure. Why is this so? This is because it is always easier to give of oneself and rise above oneself in a privileged position of pleasure (of satisfaction, adequacy and possible abundance) but only in pain, can we determine if the man is able to possess conviction and purpose, to rise above and beyond the innate drive for self-preservation. Will he persevere to make meaning of his existence and to leave a mark of infinity? Many great men have done so, Socrates, Jesus and Gandhi.

The last factor of the phenomenon of Death is the audience (immediate and extended). We come to consider the effects of the death of the Ego on the audience. How has Positive Revenge affected the audience? Sad to say, many of us remain trapped in our immediate human sphere of concerns and would not be able to learn value from the act of Positive Revenge if we do not consider of the loss of things (even people) that are of no apparent value to them. We do not consider of others in such a manner because we do not see the stark reality of us being a family of man and instead focus predominantly on our kin. Reflection and moral education is then brought about if there are spiritually mature individuals to make light of the Positive Revenge of the deceased. Through the colorful nature of the process of death, personal moral education and reflection can also be brought about.

18. Love: Romantic Love, How much and Why?

2008-12-25T06:52:00.000-08:00

After settling the integration and redefinition of Romantic Love, I move on to explore new aspects of the topic. The first question that I wish to delve more into is "How much should we love?"

The unconditional nature of Romantic Love makes it seem as though we must forgo ourselves. The answer is yes and no. Total forgoing of ourselves would not be optimal as since by being unloving to ourselves, we in turn pose a burden on those who have to care for us. Thus we must care for ourselves in order to care for others effectively. As Grayling puts it, "We owe to our neighbors as much as we owe to ourselves." But the unconditional clause means that we still prioritize the other above ourselves as both the exalted and destitute as Levinas puts it.

The second question is "What do we stand to gain from Romantic Love?"

Physical Love grants us physical pleasure, egotistical pleasure (on being valued as a sexually attractive specimen) and the continuation of our genetic line. There is no growth of the individual in this sphere.

Spiritual Love then accords us more benefits as individuals and as a unit. Its unconditional nature teaches us to give of ourselves above self-interest. Thus we learn to move beyond our ego and identity and relate to others as equally important human beings.

Secondly, we also learn of the genuine and honesty by engaging and reciprocating in spontaneous and neutral action.

Thirdly, we acquire the skills of spiritual appreciation of another's Inner Beauty and we come to know what moral knowledge and action is and in turn what the Good is.

We are also not afraid to truly be who we are because we are accepted by our partners in their spiritual love for us.

All of these benefits enable us to achieve Spiritual Growth and derive True Gratification. We then move on to consider the losses form failed Romantic Love to better understand its benefits.

When others engage us with Physical Love but no or inadequate Spiritual Love, we feel hurt from being objectified and from not being accepted as a subject.

17. Love: Integration and re-definition of my understanding of Romantic Love

2008-12-25T02:49:00.000-08:00

16 posts later and my thoughts on the topic have expanded much. Thus it is time to do a comprehensive integrative re-definition of my understanding of Romantic Love.

My current understanding of Romantic Love is the combination of Physical Love and Spiritual Love.

Physical Love is the initial stage of Love where human/sexual appreciation of our partner's physical beauty (sexual attractiveness) occurs. This type of love is exclusive in nature since it operates on a conditional "Best Fit" nature. The partner is appreciated and valued as a tool/object of means. Since the biological goal is fixed (namely continuation of the species), this form of love is limited as it is uni-directional, exists in a fixed form and on fixed points of engagement.

In the intermediate phase, Physical Love flows into Spiritual Love. At this point, both are of equal importance. Spiritual Love occurs when there is spiritual appreciation of our partner's inner beauty (moral knowledge and action). It is all-inclusive and unconditional in nature. Our partner is accepted and loved as an "other". There are no fixed directions or form or points of engagement. The point of origin and evolution emanates from a fixed point of being between the two partners' common point of being.

In the final/complete phase, Spiritual Love comes to dominate over Physical Love in importance where True Gratification occurs (both partners grow spiritually) and we are enabled to move towards grasping and practicing True Love through the experience of Romantic Love.

In this complete and final realization of Romantic Love, the partners engage each other in spontaneous and neutral action in full appreciative view of the fragility and finitude of their interaction. The partners love each others as subjects and recognize the possible trappings of ourselves as objects and in turn actively try to overcome such trappings. They then give birth to Love as a force which continues into infinity. Love is indeed all they ever need since it informs and determines its own existence.

To better put across my current understanding of Romantic Love, it is best at this time to state some of our common confusions for Romantic Love.

Confusion 1: Confusion of Methods occurs because Physical Love and human/sexual attraction are innate and do not need to be cultivated. Thus we often confuse and translate its methods to Spiritual Love. This in turn leads us to Confusion 2.

Confusion 2: Confusion of Loins occurs when Physical Love dominates over Spiritual Love. What then happens when we encounter another person who is a "Better Fit"? We then trade up if we base our actions on the falsely prioritized importance of sexual/reproductive goal.

Confusion 3: Confusion of Gratification occurs when others enter into our lives and fill up apparent gaps/voids, it is then easy to mistake that we are in Love as we experience the pleasure of Gratification since a want/need is fulfilled. This is very much similar to the case of Physical Love where a Fit occurs. This Gratification is only temporary and transactionary in nature.

The simple test would then to determine if we still would love the other if they do not fill up those gaps? If we do not, then we are not of the appropriate spiritual acumen and do not possess Spiritual Love for the other. The prevention would be to educate yourself so that you do not need others to fill gaps. You must educate yourself to only need the love of someone and not need anything from someone's Love.

16. Love: Multiplicity?

2008-12-25T00:47:00.000-08:00

I move to consider the notion that we can be in romantic love with more than one person. Given the way my thoughts on the topic have grown, I find it necessary to once again define what Romantic Love is. Romantic Love is the combination of being in love with a partner's physical beauty (human/ sexual-reproductive level) and inner beauty (spiritual level).

I started off thinking that it is very easy and human o be in love with more than one person on the basis of physical beauty.

But yet again, it is possible and only right to be in love with every person on a spiritual level. This is if we possess the correct spiritual acumen, then it is only natural that we will be able to appreciate and love all.

So indeed this led me to realize that ironically that is on the human level of physical beauty that we keeps Romantic love as love for the few/one rather than love for the all since it is only natural on a reproductive basis that we want our physical partners exclusively to ourselves to better ensure the success of our offspring. Physical beauty also keeps romantic love an exclusive nature because of its "best fit" nature as opposed to spiritual love's "all fits" nature.

15. Love: Learning how to love Blind

2008-12-23T05:06:00.000-08:00

What I wish to construct is an education of how to learn to love blind: past Physical Beauty. I understand Physical Beauty to be physical/sexual attractiveness.

The evolutionary idea of Physical Beauty can explain its importance because it gives clue to the physical health and probability of good genes of our partner. It is the product of good genes and cosmetic upkeep.

Why then would we not pursue Physical Beauty to the maximum? Why then would we not all blindly pursue the most physically beautiful specimen? I agree with Schopenhauer and argue that because it is not merely a case of maximum utility, rather we are programmed biologically to be attracted physically to others on basis of "a best fit" theory, whether its purposes are to counter our genetic flaws or better improve certain strengths. In that sense, Physical Beauty is very much in the eyes of the beholder. Some people are physically endowed so as to be able to "fit" many individuals, thus they are more attractive whereas on the other hand, others are meant to "fit" a more select population.

Physical Beauty however is often not indicative of Inner Beauty, as justified by the Socratean view. My understanding of Inner Beauty is the combination of Moral Knowledge and Moral Action (which is put into effect with determination).

There is then a clash of our reproductive needs with our spiritual needs, our primal love with our romantic love. Indeed, this is another flaw of romantic love whereby the initial engagement may be flawed. Because we are first engaged on a physical plain, we often allow that to mar and dominate our further aesthetic appreciation of the person's Inner Beauty. If we allow our loins to lead, then we may confuse Physical Beauty with Inner Beauty which is not necessarily true, our reproductive drive may invoke our imagination to fill in the then void knowledge of a person's Inner Beauty at early interaction and later counter-refute any discrepancies we should encounter.

I dare not say at this point which is more important since both have noble goals, one the continuation of the species and the other the fulfillment and growth of our spiritual self. As I have stated before, to enter a loving relationship is an unconditional and in turn binding pledge from one spiritual being to another, so to love truly means that one must bear the task and responsibility of integrating the two and create the perfect case scenario of the attraction of Physical Beauty and appreciation of Inner Beauty.

In order to love in an ascendant manner like Plato propounds in "The Symposium", the lower rungs of the ladder would be of Physical Beauty and the higher rungs would be of Inner Beauty. With reference to my previous posts, we find that spontaneous neutral love and de-objectification and re-humanization of our partners can only exist in the spiritual realm of love of our partner's Inner Beauty. In the realm of Physical Beauty, we only value and interact with each other based on qualifying attributes that we find in each other. Since this is based on qualifying attributes, Physical Beauty is in very essence conditional. With conditionality, we will never be able to see our partners in their full glory. Likewise, we would not be able to understand our subject-object dialectic. Our concern is how do we achieve this ascendant love.

First, we must have patience to outlast our loins and indeed endure the possible loss of our loins.

Secondly, we must act out the romantic engagement with appropriate aesthetic appreciation skills: fair-minded, impartial, cultured, knowledgeable, unbiased, balanced and truthful. (as put forth by Hume)

Does this answer the question of being in love with flaws of our partners? Yes! Because to possess appropriate aesthetic appreciation skills, we would be able to be fair-minded and accept. To be accept is to love.

Does this also mean that by appreciating, we judge? No! Appreciation is not the same as judging. Judging involves deciding between what is right or wrong from a fixed point of evaluation. Appreciation involves seeing clearly and acceptance.

This Life will be Long

2008-12-22T07:43:00.001-08:00

The Killers- Human

I did my best to notice
when the call came down the line
up to the platform of surrender
I was brought but I was kind
and sometimes I get nervous
when I see an open door

close your eyes, clear your heart

cut the cord
are we human or are we dancer
my sign is vital, my hands are cold
and I'm on my knees
looking for the answer
are we human or are we dancer

pay my respects to grace and virtue
send my condolences to good
give my regards to soul and romance
they always did the best they could
and so long to devotion,
you taught me everything I know
wave good bye, wish me well

you gotta let me go
are we human or are we dancer
my sign is vital, my hands are cold

and I'm on my knees
looking for the answer
are we human or are we dancer

will your system be all right
when you dream of home tonight
there is no message we're receiving
let me know is your heart still beating

3. Positive Revenge: On Becoming a more Responsible Person

2008-12-22T06:36:00.000-08:00

Firstly with my understanding that time and existence is finite and to achieve the ideal of the "Eternal Return" (for those that I love, I may have failed my philosophy and my old teacher but as of this moment, I am not spiritually akin to state that I wish for any "Eternal Return" for myself) I strive during this holiday period to communicate with and establish a genuine human connection with those who have enriched my life.

Also with my understanding that as humans possessing a constructed identity, we often are not even completely honest with ourselves. Indeed, we often engage in too much self-justification and think of ourselves as better than we actually are.

So I have to be honest with myself as a true and erroneous being, not the much more wholesome and justified identity that I wish to see myself as. I must try to get past the identity that I put before my witness-consciousness so that I don't engage in self-deluding hypocrisy.

6. Art: Parallels and re-considerations from "Aesthetic and morality ( Elisabeth Schellekens) "

2008-12-22T00:50:00.000-08:00

"Aristotle and Plato- all art has a moral nature . Affect the way in which we see and relate to the world. Direct our sympathies and emotions. Constitutive element of our broader morality. Music is most directly moral, un-mediated correlation with our emotions"

Here is the first parallel, which is the moral nature that I am interested in propounding for art: as a means to bridge towards the truth and the good.

"Plato- art as representational art forms (painting and poetry) rejected because of their metaphysical poverty. The objects of the world are already mere imitations of the ideal and universal forms of such objects, theses art forms are then imitations of imitations."

The second parallel rests in this idea that art should be a means to bridge and not merely the artist's attempt at reproduction and representation. Stark and confrontational art that breaks the consumer out of his/her comfort zone and to make the attempt to grasp the bridging process for his/her own.

"The aesthetic value: of a thing, person or event has in virtue of its distinctly aesthetic qualities. An aesthetic experience is characterized by 3 features: unity, complexity and intensity. When we engage in aesthetic contemplation, we adopt a unique mental stance with a certain kind of detachment. When we appreciate something aesthetically, we do not look at its practical function. This attitude is marked by a detached and open awareness. This aesthetic experience can be: contemplative or reflective, active or passive."

This is an aspect that I had not explored into. So now, I seek to integrate the idea of Schelleken's "Aesthetic Experience" with my understanding of Art as means of Bridging towards the Truth.

What follows is a synthesis: I am interested in the active (consumer to take ownership of the process of bridging) contemplative (thinking beyond oneself) and reflective (thinking of oneself) effect of art on the consumer when the consumer has an aesthetic experience )when the real and imagined senses of the consumer are engaged) from interaction with the work of art.

Before we move on, I wish to spend more time on discussing the contemplative and reflective aspects. Contemplative effects of Art can take the form of broadening our moral knowledge into unknown areas (perspectivism) and to be beside ourself and our cultural mores to adopt controversial positions (to satisfy curiosities and purge taboos). Contemplation should and often flows into reflection where the consumer reassesses and reaffirms his/her moral thought. When contemplation flows into reflection, the consumer has taken a positive step towards bridging the truth.

Good Art is aesthetically appealing and creates a positive aesthetic experience. A positive aesthetic experience is when good art is able to engage and enthrall the consumer to take up the process of owning his/her own bridging towards the good/truth.

What then makes Good Art aesthetic appealing? Good Art is when the tools of its art-form are made use of in a balanced way to to engage real and imagined senses in a "Pure" manner.

Aesthetic appeal then translates into the ability of the engaged consumer to see the truth and want to channel his/her energies towards ownership of the process of bridging towards the truth.

Now it is important at this point to take note that I do not wish to reduce art to a mere epistemological tool. In fact, I see entertainment and pleasure as a prerequisite of Good art. In order to explain this assertion, I will compare representational art and Good art and its pleasurable and entertaining effect on its consumers.

With representational art, pleasure derives only from appreciation of it as a good replica of its subject and the skill of the artist is often appreciated. The pleasure is of a very here-and-now and immediate form.

Whereas with Good art, the consumer is engaged and has take-aways from the interaction. There is a deeper and prolonged resonance. There is both the pleasures described above and an ingrained pleasure via the active process of contemplation flowing into reflection where the consumer has made the aesthetic experience a part of his/herself.

The Hope

2008-12-19T22:23:00.000-08:00

Much doubt begins to take up residence in Dean's mind. It is unlikely that it can be a rat, he thinks to himself. Something more subversive, something more low-brow, something more disturbing. He lines up his suspicions before him, as if before a firing squad and he names them one by one. His brutal pain reveals itself in the deprecatory female names thet he levels upon them. He feels the illusion of being in greater control as he exercises and successfully dominates them mentally.

One night, he awakes from slumber for no apparent reason except that his pain has willed it. His eyes fling open and for the brief moment before his thoughts catch yup with his action, he is but a skin vessel with functional muscular contractions. The vacuum suck of harsh reality rapes him form the temporary respite of slumber into the conscious skin vessel. He is awake, now. But what? The thoughts flood into their usual progression of questions without answers, self-pity, self-loathe, anxiety, hurt and empty meaninglessness.

The rustle! There it is again! Flipping onto his stomach, he probes the squalid and small space that is his room,. Nothing in sight. But the movement rings out constant. It is very much alive. The suspects now line up in his mental-scape once again. Roaches, they must be cockroaches! A breeding mass of them in a dank cupboard ox under his bed is hardly solid anymore. It is probably chewed up, eaten, shit out and re-consumed. He imagines the the pile of dry bits and pieces that the cockroaches perpetuate in motion by crawling and burrowing within and without. The cockroaches must be so aplenty that they bored, climb all over , fornicate with and defecate on each other. Each is a part of the whole yet each is the whole because if even one ceased its devil dance, the whole would collapse into non-existence.

Dean holds his breath and is once sick to his core at the mere thought that he shares the same air as the circus orgy beneath him. He hols it bravely and fens off his anxiety attack. Good clean air, he repeats to himself. Good, clean air..... But suddenly, he lets loose his tightly clamped lips as if involuntarily and takes in a huge drink of air. And then a sly smile begins to form on his face as he closes his eyes and dreams of the visual scene of the orgy. As he revisits the sandman once again, a tear streaks down upon his cursed face.

Lil Dean and his Hope

2008-12-18T07:11:00.000-08:00

Lil Dean had a hope. But recently, he is under the impression that he has lost it. To be perfectly honest, he has not lost it. He let go of it and it was torn from him. Not taken, mind you but torn. You may ask how can anything tear away from us something which one gives up? It can be done and has been done. The answer is simple: something that matters a lot but has no way of becoming reality. Dean was a curious bystander as the action was committed with force but with a good and generous demeanor. It was for the best, the puzzle master said. It was for the best.

How so? What is the good to be born out of this? Lil Dean does not know. Perhaps he will never know. The mechanics of this yarn of crushing tale is not open to him because the puzzle master has yanked the truth and held a stubborn prisoner along with it, his hope. The puzzle master, she is love yet she is the enemy. Lil Dean knows all this but of the truth, he knows nowt.

So he lies in bed, day and night. But it is at night that he hears things. It sounds like a plastic bag rustling. Like something is moving. He turns and illuminates his room with the strobe light that he keeps by his side. Nothing. He observes, peering into the dark like a stealthy jackal prowling. Still nothing. And so he lies. Still, again. And he slips into slumber. But there, it goes again. The rustling sounds again. This time, it is tentative and shy as if it senses his stirring. He awakes. His memory tells him: yes, you did hear something, you swine! And so he repeats the routine. Illuminate, nothing. Lay ambush, nothing.

The next night, he does not even sleep. He just lies there and listens. It rustles fervently. More and more. It must think him a fool and asleep. Lil Dean imagines some kind of infectious rat. But how could a rat have made it into his room? From where and what does it feed on? As his mind wrestles with the possibilities and improbabilities, the perverse rustling continues. It even purrs. Or rumbles. The sound that it makes sickens Dean to his core. And that, it hits him. In all its grotesque truth, it is his hope.

He imagines his hope in the form of a putrid rat with disease-ridden cantankerous teeth. It probably has bristling fur made yellow and stringy by neglect. It is hungry and mean. It is scared and it is this fear which makes it strong. It is no longer of him but has mutated and persisted in form and purpose in a rabies driven mad biological creature. It is vile and it sickens him to his core. To think that with every breath, he is drawing on a part of its expelled air. On its life.

5. Art, Music: As tool to Bridge towards the Truth

2008-12-15T18:31:00.000-08:00

With Hendrix, we observe acid blues rock at its best and we see that with music, we can tell how people have changed.

Back then people could appreciate this because they bothered to sit back and listen
and ponder to find meaning out of the apparent jibble-jabble of notes and sound.

But now you find that people want catchy repetitive hooks that they can identify with quickly. They don't want anything too complicated as they are lazy mentally. They want their gratification fast and easy.

2. Positive Revenge: Parallels from "Socrates in Love" (Christopher Phillips)

2008-12-15T05:07:00.000-08:00

We should live Love. All our dealings, large and small, impact others and we should act so that they will be moved to live a life of unconditional love. We don't have to look at saving a life in a grandiose way.

To practice unconditional Love, you need to be wholly interested and devote a great deal of effort to discovering their deepest hopes and do what is best for the beloved with no though or expectation of personal reward.

We need to dispense with all pejorative labels and see ourselves as flawed and foible and never put ourselves above anyone.

Not only must we love those that we are ordinarily not predisposed to love, we should also allow ourselves to love by those who don't love us. Or else we will be keeping ourselves only in situations when we have control over the "loving situation".

Bertrand Russell expounds the Socratic and Buddhist ideal over the example found in the New Testament because in unconditional Love, no one really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment. Socrates, upon his death, never exhorted his followers to exact revenge on his persecutors. Instead, he told them to reach out to others in love, more than ever. (Positive Revenge!) Russell finds this more worthy than what is advanced in the New Testament where anyone who does not believe in Jesus will not be able to escape the damnation of Hell and shall not be forgiven.

The Old Testament also speaks of Unconditional Love of Man for God. Job is in anguish because he has apparently been forsaken by one he himself would never forsake. Indeed, his very actions and persistence to stick to the course of Love in a Loveless world is a form of positive revenge and encourages all who strive.

To give birth to Unconditional Love, empathy must be gained. Can you "teach" empathy? Do you have to first suffer cruelty and harshness yourself to identify with others who have suffered? Nussbaum asserts that all intelligence has its emotional component. Once emotions are suffused with intelligence and discernment, an awareness of value or importance is achieved and this cannot easily be sidelined in accounts of ethical judgment.

Positive Revenge brigs about a heroism and intensity of thought, feeling and acts of love which continue ad infinitum, irregardless of the mortal lifespan of their agents.

As my mum has contended, would not people who make positive revenge a way of life be "fools"? The moral-realist's position is that if you believe the worst in people, they will be all too happy to comply and show you their worst. But if you believe the best in them, they may be inspired to bring out the goodness within and act accordingly. And since our end goal is love, we must believe and act in the course of love so as to give it room to grow.

14. Love: Socrates in Love (Christopher Phillips)

2008-12-15T02:01:00.000-08:00

Eros is free love, a realization of a higher desire.

How do we know what we should desire? If you fulfill a desire and yet afterward it leaves you feeling empty or ashamed, then you have not fulfilled Eros. Eros can only be one that makes you happy and that makes happier all those with whom you are doing the fulfilling.

Then there was a double standard that many feminists and the rest of us often fall into as well. According to Nin, she states that women should focus on reeducating men about the true ways of Eros because women are the only gender still fully in touch with true Eros. This leads us to often apply double standards and accuse or put the blame on the male partner when a relationship fails.

An analysis of Oedipus shows his path towards Eros as he persisted in his search for the truth out of love for his people, even after being warned by others. Likewise, those who loved Oedipus tried to derail him from his efforts even if it meant putting themselves in harm's way.

Of Sexual desire conflicting with the achievement of Eros, Cephalus argues that we control and channel our passions in ways that lead to the loving pursuit of those that matter more- how to become a more excellent human being and how to make our world a more loving one. Plato supports that we first must indulge our appetites neither too much or too little, just enough to lay them to sleep and prevent them and thier enjoymenst and pains from interferring with the higher principle.

Heavenly Eros is then achieved through searching within your beloved for such manisfestations of beauty when we learn that the beauty of our partner's soul is more valuable than the beauty of thier bodies.

Socrates distinguishes between the 3 kinds of lovers: the "evil lover" who is out to serve him/herself and makes him/herself agreeable in order to enslave and deceive another and loves only as wolves love lambs, the "non-lover" whose excessive prudence does not stir any emotional response and attachment from his/her partner and the "noble lover who does not seek tat which is best for him/herself but is concerned only for his/her beloved.

The best lovers are creative and make their partner feel more free than when they were before they entered into them. There is also total acceptance for each other as they act as each other's non-judgmental mirror. They lovingly and gently reveal aspects of ourselves that may be difficult to acknowledge, showing only as much as we can take in at any given time. The best lovers are inspired to make beauty out of what at present is its converse.

Gasset states that we can find in love the most decisive symptom of what a person is.
If a person is not sensitive, how can his love be sentient? If he is not profound, how can his love be deep? As one is, so is his love.

Heavenly EROS outlet

2008-12-14T21:20:00.000-08:00

4. Art (Alain De Botton)

2008-12-12T06:30:00.000-08:00

Artists and philosophers not only show us what we have felt, they also present our experiences more poignantly and intelligiently than we have been able to: they give shape to aspects of our lives that we identify as our own yet could never have understood so clearly on our own. The greatest works speak to us without knowing of us.

"The Sorrows of Young Werther" is an example of this. It is a book which even Napoleon used to read on his campaigns. It tells of how the apparently kind and yet infinitely cruel manner with which the person who does not love deals with the one who does. And falling out of love "grants" one the license to hurt.

2008-12-10T09:03:00.001-08:00

1. Positive Revenge: I AM MANURE! (The Positive Revenge of the Virtuous)

2008-12-10T01:07:00.000-08:00

Barrels loaded against the Injustice of it all, the Virtuous will launch a last stand. A fatalistic rebel cry that will not yield and add to the cycle of blame, pain and suffering.

When hurt, people normally lash out at others (without concern or taking responsibility for their actions) and thus perpetuate and feed the monster that is suffering and unhappiness, inadvertently unleashing it upon others.

The Virtuous refuse that fate! Instead, their Kamikaze dive will be a tongue in cheek middle finger to all selfishness and injustice of the world.

I understand that I am already dead.

I was wrong to think that I had a right to experience happiness. How deluded was I to think that I could experience happiness and comfort like others?

I was wrong to think that my sadness was special in form and existence. When all around me, everyone is in pain.

Adopting from Seneca, I do not expect any positives from this world. Fickle fortune can only take away from me, not tear away.

Adopting from Nietzsche, I will fight and strive to extend beyond myself and use pain and suffering as manure to feed come what may.

Adopting from Schopenhauer, I understand that pain and suffering are inescapable facts of life.

When I combine all these understandings, I strive to make it so that all that dies from me will become nourishing life for others. I strive to make a positive out of a negative, to make something out of a null, to fill in for others with my hollow self.

What greater beauty can be afforded? In my process of un-becoming, how great would be if someone could become.

My ideal death would be a outwardly giving one, not in the hope of being lauded a hero but only to give injustice and unhappiness a slap in the face.

4. On pain: Ignorance of the Virtuous

2008-12-06T00:20:00.000-08:00

Of course we are never fully virtuous beings but there may be some unethical acts that we have never done and can never imagine doing.

Part of forgiveness must arise from understanding and coming to terms with the inner motivations of the perpetrator.

But if we are virtuous in that aspect, can we ever really know of that angle of human motivation? Perhaps we can never imagine it. Thus perhaps we can never forgive it and never transcend the scars with which the act has etched upon us.

Seneca supports me here. He defines frustration as the collision of a wish with an unyielding reality. We are then hurt mot by those we least expected and cannot fathom. So the task is here to prepare for our wishes the softest landing possible on the adamant wall of reality.

Wisdom is then learning not to aggravate the world's obstinacy through our own responses, through spasms of rage, self-pity, anxiety, bitterness, self-righteous and paranoia.

Seneca states that what makes us angry are dangerously optimistic notions about what the world and other people are like. This is critically determined by what we think of as normal. We are only angry when we are denied an object that we think we are rightfully entitled to. The sad fact of reality for the Virtuous is then that we cannot always explain our destiny by referring to our moral worth. All that transpires is often a cruel but morally meaningless by-product of random elements.

To him: Happiness is a productum, something preferred.

I Persevered (Apocalypse Now)

2008-12-05T08:44:00.000-08:00

So I did. It beckoned me.

Seems like we all came to the end of the river. And all the hanging corpses and decapitated heads were of no shock value. They did not even register. Even the water buffalo which was hacked into severed pieces, its eyes lolly-gagging at the sea of humanity before it rang short and little.

The cruelty and insanity of life (made cruel by Roles and Egos) was incomparably scarier than whatever Death could bring. We dehumanize and treat each other to such an extent that even death is a welcome embrace.

How many of us would be content enough to face death, lord over and deprive death, teach death, talk to death, befriend death and then allow death to do its job?

How many of us would be content enough with the meaning of our lives to do all that?

I Gave Up (Apocalypse Now)

2008-12-04T08:56:00.001-08:00

Yes, I gave up midway. I had to watch some funnies to clear my head.

Never since American History X have I been so mentally disturbed by a film.

And here I was thinking that Duvall's Lt Col Kilgore and his "Ride of the Valyrie" sweep upon that village to secure good 6-foot swells to surf was insane.

But as they pushed upriver, each encounter turned more cruel and mad. (From the Playboy bunnies "Doll" scene to them wasting a sampan full of farmers.)

And of course it is fiction. But still.....

There was a time when I would just condemn such film representations aside and smile at the nihilism of life. But now, it just turns my stomach and makes me so sad. You may say that it is just fiction but I know that the reality of the war must have been worse.

If ever you have been in a situation whereby you have witnessed human cruelty or hostility, you would have remembered how your heart pounded. You would have remembered how your breath then turned heavy and inward. Remember that and imagine that every moment of your experience feels like that. To the point that maybe you just give in to the overwhelming otherness of the feeling and stop being you.

I wonder if I have the testicular and more importantly mental fortitude to watch on.

My Moon

2008-12-04T01:24:00.001-08:00

Who are you? Who are you to me? Look at you, floating in silence beside my being as if we are of one unit.

When we spin as we do in cosmic dance, my people have seen and still see you. They have worshiped and still worship you.

Remember when you turned red, we laughed as they scurried and killed each other in blood-letting orgies and justified obscenities on our innocent brother Sun's infracted beams of light.

In a sense, I was to blame as well. My atmosphere had blocked and bended selectively. Perhaps, it was in me to secretly want to belittle and intimidate my people as they kill me daily in so many ways. Maybe it was out of a vengeful spirit. But yet as we laughed at how they scurried, I then later cried in solitude as I felt their blood soak my soul and you.... You just turned your beautiful featureless self away to let me cry in bitter loneliness. Abandonment in space echoes so much greater since solitude is the norm in such expanse.

When we first danced, we wrapped each other in embrace tightly as we spun in revolution. Your weight of being used to trash my waters and my waves made impressions on the surfaces of my earth. Your weight formed me on the surface.

Now calmer waves prevail. As time has passed, you have slipped further. My dance pattern is to blame as I foxtrot to a faster inner rhythm and the waves of my oceans spin you with feckless torque outwards and outwards.

Who am I? Who am I to you? If my being of being is what denies our eternal Dance.

3. On pain: Freud and Eliot on Happiness

2008-12-04T01:01:00.000-08:00

Freud states that our pleasure is entirely subjective and not only is our pleasure idiosyncratic, it is revealing of our idiosyncrasy.

If you want to find out who you are, recognize what makes you happy.

Pain is not the ultimate mode of self-realization. It is merely provisional and a protest…Pleasure is Nature’s test, her sign of approval.

We need only understand our pleasure so we can get to our pleasure.

Pain is a protest against the absence of pleasure.

It is only through pleasure that individualism becomes possible.

The problem which I posit is how modern man as “clever animals” then safeguard and sustain their pleasure-seeking and how pleasure-seeking informs their daily decisions as the lifeline to everything that matters in life. Also, the tool to individualism is exclusionary and often can be used as a camouflage in order to deny others (who become barriers to their realization of personage) of their right to pleasure as well.

T.S Eliot counter-argues by stating the parallel text. We are always driven to approach and avoid the objects of desire and what makes us feel most alive makes us feel like we are risking our lives. (The numbing ordinary of “Happiness” or contentment)

In this life, uncanniness is way in excess of canniness and we feel like we are ineluctably involved in our lives yet we do not know what we are doing.

A sense of aliveness displaces a sense of certainty as a paramount consideration.

Our Needs (real or imagined) inform our direction in life and if needs then become the only sole and paramount informer of our directions in life.

Who are we to trust anyone and their future actions upon the pledges of today? This is highly disturbing. Does a change in need then justify a 360 degrees change in direction? Does a person with different set of needs then exist wholly as a new person from which previous engagements are null?

If we all operate from self-orientated need system, then this is what we can give each other: temporary and disguised Happiness.

Around and about madness (Adam Phillips)

2008-12-04T00:46:00.000-08:00

The mad- people who, by not playing the game, makes us wonder what the game is.

Indeed why the rest of us have consented to play it?

They are the Cultural outlaws or odd prophets who are unable or unwilling to follow rules.

The term "Mad" is also normally used about someone when their sociability begins to break down.

Talking about madness, in other words is a way of talking about our preferred versions of a life that we protect and nurture or prefer to be rid of

A Conundrum about "Mad" people: are people mad because they are isolated or are people isolated because they are mad?

In their isolation, the mad are dispossessed individuals who are prevented from adding to the stock of available reality. This raises the question of powers of representation and its influence on who society terms as "mad".

In other modern accounts, madness can also be understood as a person’s ingenious though debilitating self-cure for the obstacles thrown up by his individual development

"Madness" is then the ways that we have found to protect ourselves or cure ourselves- defences, symptoms, eccentricities- both the problem and solution

Peter Goldie: Moral and Ethical Responsibility and Punishment

2008-12-01T00:27:00.000-08:00

I have made a booboo of myself and my actions. I have wrongly associated and enacted punishment with holding others morally and ethically responsible.

As I was discussing with Leung, I hold people responsible for their actions and the consequences of their actions if these actions are voluntary.

I rightfully do not hold people responsible for a morally-flawed disposition or character trait. But that is as far as I will go because being a moral-realist, the actions and consequences of rational beings affect others. And it is on this plain that we can very much control and remedy.

But as often is the case with such understandings, justice and fairness comes into consideration. Should I extend and expect this moral and ethical responsibility to others? Is it too demanding of others? When a lot of people that I know of just want to feel good about themselves and their actions or maybe even just feel good. At what cost? They kinda bugger all.

Because many others do not think of the consequences of their actions, they operate on a reactionary level. They flatten themselves out, "It's not my fault, I can't help it, I'm just a...."

It is perhaps because of this frustration that I have wrongfully associated punishment with the failure of moral and ethical responsibility. Who am I to punish anyone?

Yes, at the end of the day, it is the same. I can only show them love and give them happiness, I should not expect anything back from them.

But since we are reflective creatures and are able to remedy past actions and circumspect against future actions, we should and this is what I preach and what I will be doing. Circumspection and forward planning against our future selves is important since strength of will may come too late or not be enough. Thus by planning against our future selves and putting things in our way (so that we are unable to carry out the wrong actions even if we wanted to), we in effect guard others against our possible failings.

A Pledge

2008-11-30T21:08:00.000-08:00

Now, truth is valued in speech and action. Because it serves as a guide to our need to predict and make stable the external environment. Only when we consider the environment stable , can we make the most optimal of choices.

When we speak of personal mottoes/ principles, we are in effect pledging and communicating a stability of our actions.

So consider Love, which as we all understand now is an unconditional act and emotion.
When we say that we love someone, it is our ethical responsibility to mean it.

Next, consider the case of privileged position. When we speak of anything and pledge of any action, let it never be from a privileged position.

When we speak of and pledge a positive action, it may have good origins (principles, desire, motivation). But a good origin does not necessarily translate into a good action.

We may not be at fault for our dispositions and character but we are definitely responsible for our actions and their very real consequences upon others.

A privileged position never bears truth because it does not test our actions in a case of otherwise. Thus we should never speak of and pledge a positive action from a privileged position unless we have the means to test ourselves and prove our pledge true.

13. Love: Anakin and Padme

2008-11-30T07:54:00.000-08:00

I have already written on the "imperfect" nature of romantic love and its possible inhibition to the discovery of pure love. But I was watching Star Wars so allow me to use an analogy. Consider Anakin and Padme. Anakin is training to be a Jedi. The Jedi love. They operate on an all-loving level that objectifies all their actions. Their love is unconditional to all, even their enemies. The Jedi represents "Moral Man" and their love represents the "Love of Moral Man".

Padme represents the very human level of romantic love. Where happiness is only accessible when exclusivity and reciprocity is achieved as conditions.

With romantic love, conditions set in. And with contingency, comes fear. When we act so as to escape pain and fear, we are not allowing ourselves to think. We act first and then use thinking to justify our actions when we should be thinking, considering and then acting upon our best choice.

Romantic love then traps Anakin and prevents him from ascending towards the free state of the Jedi.

And a slightly disturbing reality that I just realized is that so long as I never engage with someone in romantic love who loves on the "Moral Man" level, I will always be the one who will be hurt. But this is the prize and burden that I have to bear at my level of understanding. And I rightfully bear it. As Tenzeeng said it, "We cannot expect anything back from them, we can only make them happy as it is our calling (for lack of a better word)."

Since I am of this understanding, I should have the ethical responsibility and moral bravery to perpetuate love as a force for humanity. So I will be brave.