Philosophical Musings

2nd last day at work

Today was my second last day at work. It was so sweet of my colleagues to organise a lunch (company-side) and party (client-side) for me. I have really enjoyed working with all of them and hope to keep in touch. If any of you are reading this, feel free to comment and leave your contacts here too!

Subjects: Work 仕事

Mood: Philosophical Musings

Tags: goodbye

The Tragedy of an INTP

The burdens of being me:
…an ever-pervasive sense of impending doom (I tend to overthink things sometimes).
…perfectionism (it’s a disease).
…potential dilettanteism: once the subject no longer facinates me.
…reluctance to emote; the fear of being emotional: until stress accumulates, leading to emotional distress and outbursts.
…embarassment when being praised (WHY?)
…often misunderstood because of difficulties in expressing myself.
…hating to have to stick to convention and being wrongly thought of as being arrogant as a result.

Subjects: General

Mood: Philosophical Musings

Tags: INTP

Bindings

Neuroticism and its greater counterpart, insanity, must be the results of their environment. Is it possible to turn insane, being drowned in a pool of silence, where the only signs of disburbance come from the annoyances of small talk? Chatter chatter [how is the weather] chatter chatter [how was lunch], and so on.

A restless mind in captivity, seeking to break from its bindings. But the attempt to escape is rendered futile by circumstances unforeseen and beyond control. Certainly, the escapee-aspirant is not without blame — indecisiveness is a factor of futility.

Each soul is formed from a myriad of characters, one of whom is called ‘Loser’. In a fashion that is bitterly ironic, Loser’s personality dominates and shuts away Optimism and Optimism’s friends into the soul’s asylum. Ever so frequently, the characters with hope call out from the asylum’s cells. The calls are the cries of freedom-desired. Loser is physically-free yet trapped by its loneliness and tormented by the calls of its prisoners. It needs companionship but can see no other way to communicate this need. Entrenched in its subconscious is the want to control - everything - and its selfishness finally leads it to the conclusion that if companionship is beyond its ability to earn, the enslavement of others is the best alternative.

Subjects: General

Mood: Philosophical Musings

Tags: loser

Space Elevator

Arthur C. Clarke’s one of my top 5 favourite sci-fi authors, and my favourite book from him would have to be . Set in both imaginary past and the not-too-distant future, it is the tale of two visionaries, a king and an engineer, who envision and put to science fiction reality, the towers of babylon.

And we are now a further step away from this being a mere dream if Bradley Edwards, Director of Research for the Institute for Scientific Research, is to come closer to realising his vision.

An article two years ago that I read from SPACE.com, “The Space Elevator Comes Closer to Reality”; and its follow-up just a few days ago, “Space Elevator: Momentum Building”.

Subjects: Books 書物, Technology 技術

Mood: Philosophical Musings

Tags: Arthur C. Clarke, physics, science fiction, space elevator

Emotions in writing and Wave Particle Duality

It’s so hard to write about emotional states and momentary feelings, because the process of reflection - that transpires while putting thoughts to words - alter the very subjects to begin with. I see this as analogous to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, a consequence of wave particle duality in physics, in which the act of observation alters the state of a quantum system.

How is this so?

In order to write, we assume that our subjects possess definitive states; in reality, they fluctuate with every word that is spoken or heard, every sensation received from interaction with the environment, every thought process that is made. The additional dimension of time allows us to objectively assess and rationalise these states and feelings with our belief systems. The resultant evaluation is likely to be radically different from the original subjects that are of a transient nature.

Subjects: General

Mood: Discoveries & Relevations, Philosophical Musings

Tags: Heisenberg, physics, wave particle duality

Fulfilment

Been questioning myself on the reasons, besides money and accountability to my parents, for taking up my present job.

Perhaps, it was the boredom of doing nothing-particularly-interesting that made me desire work ASAP. However, looking deeper, I think it must have been ego at play.

Society valuates a person’s worth according to the quantity/quality of economic contribution. In other words, I’d probably been an economic liability for the last few months, despite my personal satisfaction from learning a new language.

It never helped whenever I bumped into people that I’d not seen for months.

They’d go: “So, what have you been up to of late? Graduated? Already working?”
And I’d be: “Yeah” to the first, “no” to the second.”
Then they’d go: “Cannot find job ah
And I’d be like, “well…not exactly… Haven’t really been out searching. Learning Japanese right now….”
Then they’d look and me and go: “[short pause]… I see…”

Maybe it was sensitivity on my own part; perhaps the mildly-disapproving looks that I thought I was receiving, derived, in actuality from my own imagination. At times, I couldn’t help feeling weak and incapacitated, torn between doing what I wanted and what society expected me to. Not many people know this, but during the period of November-December, I must have been suffering from a bout of depression: I would be sitting down at home reading a book when I’d experience a wave helplessness suddenly overwhelming and choking me.

Subjects: General

Mood: Discoveries & Relevations, Philosophical Musings

Tags: career, hyperthyroid, Japanese, wanderlust, yoga

Transmutations

This is something fascinating that I came across while reading the December 2003 edition of Scientific American.

The cover of the magazine features 6 photographs of the facial profile of a female model. These photographs originated from the same photo source, digitally altered with only minor differences - for example, eye/hair colour, the colour of skin. If each photo were viewed separately, one might not realise that the photos are of the same person: the ‘minor differences’ influences the viewer’s decision to classify the model into different races. In one photo the model looks perfectly Japanese, in another she looks Russian.

Reading into the feature article, I discovered that the amalgam was generated with a computer tool called the Human Race Machine, that was designed by (bioart?) artist Nancy Burson. It’s quite amazing really. Apparently, all one needs to do is to sit in front of the machine and enter a few keys, while the program does the rest of the work.

The artist’s website can be found here. It’s a pity it doesn’t contain the Scientific American photographs since they are a lot more racially ambiguous than the photos in her website.

Subjects: General

Mood: Discoveries & Relevations, Philosophical Musings

Tags: bio-art, Scientific American

Zen

Been having a damn writing mental block. I swear I attempted to fill this space yesterday but I could generate nothing decent. Must be really out of practice. So, I figured I’d just cut and paste this little questionaire that I completed in Friendster today which I thought was kind of zenish.

1. If I were a month I would be
October. ‘Cause as long as the last day of October has not yet passed I’d be forever young lol.

2. If I were a day of the week I would be:
 Friday.

3. If I were a time of day I would be:
3AM. My time of solitude.

4. If I were a planet I would be:
Pluto. Because it’s the most mysterious and eccentric.

5. If I were a sea animal I would be:
Something that won’t be caught and eaten.

6. If I were a direction I would be:
An orbit direction.

7. If I were a piece of furniture I would be:
A bookshelf.

8. If I were a historical figure I would be:
Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Subjects: General

Mood: Philosophical Musings

Tags: Chungking Express, Cowboy Bebop, Friendster, Minority Report

Sleeping on one side and double-vision

The experience one gets from sleeping on one side of the face the whole night is a disconcerting albeit temporary case of double-vision when one wakes up. This is attributed to the slight misalignment of the eye. However, the body usually recognises this problem and restores balance in a blink of an eye, literally - I apologise for the pun. A similar but worse situation is when that double vision occurs not from two eyes out-of-sync but in one eye alone, no thanks to the slight swelling of eye tissue, being a result of Grave’s Disease. Sadly to say, this condition isn’t as temporary as the first case mentioned and I can attest to this from personal experience. You know the line from the Book of Corinthians that says that as we grow up we see through a glass darkly? Well I see now not just darkly (at least that’s what I think) but doubly too (ouch that was so not funny). Thankfully, only one eye is afflicted so with both eyes I can still read and see things almost the way they should be seen.

Subjects: General, Film, Television & Anime 映像

Mood: Philosophical Musings

Tags: Corinthians, eye, Grave's Disease, Hong Kong, hyperthyroid, vision, Wong Kar Wai

Visions of Dystopia

I have visions of dystopia.

While I was publishing the Kenshin post, I thought about the New Media Art tutorial that I attended today. If the world of the future proves to be similar to the concepts the artist Stellarc proposed in his writings and artworks, I think I’ll be happy not to live in that future.

This essay of fiction exemplifies the reasons for the position I adopt, in a way I don’t think I can better. And I’m pretty sure you might have read this before if you had access to the Internet before the start of this millennium.

Subjects: Technology 技術

Mood: Philosophical Musings

Tags: Kenshin 剣心, Matrix, new media, vision

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