Things to think about

1) History is full of people who, out of greed, fear, ignorance or lust for power have destroyed treasures of measurable value who truly belong to all of humanity. We must not let it happen again.

2) An extraterrestrial being who visited Earth, will find the differences between societies/races trivial compared to the similarities.

- Carl Sagan -

I just "resaw" the last episode of Cosmos by Carl Sagan, and you know, it is the kind of show that will leave you hopeful, leave you motivated, leave you optimistic. You see the comments on the video, and you will think that this world has hope (unlike when you read politicians' blogs' comments or portals like malaysianinsider of theonlinecitizen/stomp where you will wonder how we can progress with such myopic views......)

then I saw this comment which really hit the nail on the head: the combined views of all the episodes of cosmos is not more than the views of a video titled:"guy stick his head up a woman's ass". LOL

In his Foundation series Novel, Isaac Asimov wrote that humanity as we know it is unsustainable. Our species is too individualistic. We depend too much on randomness, on luck, on mob consciousness to drive our societies' progress. It is thus inevitable that we will go through cycles of strong civilization and dark ages.

In his book, the withering of civilization is characterized by the disuse of nuclear power and the reversion back to chemical energy. As society grows more barbaric, knowledge becomes scarce, people become afraid of the unknown/afraid of knowledge....and a vicious cycle is started.....and it takes centuries before a great civilization will notice its demise. But by then it will be already too late.

Because for humans, it seems like we programmed to be cyclical. Sustaining something seems to be the hardest for us humans....every idea seems to start out well, but as things get more and more complicated, we will just follow with the flow, and because of all the "reptilian nature" of humans: "selfishness", "greed", "fear of the unknown/ppl who are different from us, all good ideas will end up becoming not so good, and the society will start to lose it's edge as well.....until another great idea comes out from the ashes. No degeneration, no innovation, no progress.

has this vicious cycle started already for us?

The novel's solution was a collective consciousness, a collective brain, a collective memory to guide us humans....but with a collective consciousness, there will be more exceptional beings, there will be no chaos, and no chaos means no deviants, no genius, no breakthrough. Breakthroughs and chaos goes hand in hand. Chaos means you risk survival for progress. Stability means you live, but progress will be limited.

Which one do you want?

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;	5
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,	10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.	15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. To prevent yourself from reciting this poem everytime you reach a crossroad, a guideline should be developed: 1) If you know that there is an easiest path with the least obstacle, take it 2) If you reach a T junction, wait. One or all of the options will disappear with time. 3) If you reach a dead end, wait. A road will appear. 4) If a road doesnt appear. settle down. 4) If a junction looks like it leads to gold, wait. Its better to be number 38 than to die. 5) If you are lost, wait to be rescued. 6) If no one wants to rescue you, you don't deserve to be rescued anyway. 7) 所谓:忍一时风平浪静; 退一步海阔天空。 8) 所谓: 丹青不知老将至，富贵于我如浮云。 9) 所谓: 得过且过，逍遥自在。 10) 所谓: 船到桥头自然直 。 nuff said. Like my favourite econs teacher used to say: Ignorance is Bliss.

Random thoughts

Have you ever looked out of your airplane window in the middle of the night? It is just amazing!!! The amount of stars you see are just woah...
Why go to some god forsaken place to watch stars, when you can do it in the middle of your long flight!! Airlines should put some windows on the top of their aircraft! that would be SO COOL!!

I bet you can see lots of shooting stars too!!

If the airplane's engine suddenly stalls, what would you do??

Human emotions is very weird! You feel anxious, even when you know you shouldn't and it does you no good!! But you can't do anything about it!! Like leaving a place for a long long time for example.. in the airplane you will think alot, you will reminiscent, you will have this bittersweet feeling and you will tell yourself I don't want to leave ppl like that again..whatever whatever, but the moment you touchdown, all the feelings will be gone in an instant!! Which is why, history always repeat itself...which is why, we seriously need an immortal to remember stuff for mankind. Books, videos are too emotionless to be tasked such a momentous task!


Quotes that I must jot down:

1. The world's biggest sin is ennui.

2. It is better to be pretty than to be good.

3. Ugliness is one of the world's deadly virtues.

4. People who actually think are ugly, which is y all the scientists and thinkers look more and more dreadful as time passes on. The only ppl who looks as pretty even after years of working are priests. But then again, the things that they know 40 years ago, is no difference than what they know now.

5. Are you against religion? No, Im just against vandalism.

Long time Long time

I accidentaly stumbled onto some old blog posts.. (because of some spam comments ironically), and I am really surprised I said all the things that I said!!! That post I was actually talking about how my interview skills were really bad..

Actually, come to think of it, I am always surprised at what I typed out everytime I look at my older posts...and that will prompt me to write something, anything, just to leave a tiny bookmark in my life, so that I can get surprised again a few years down the road..

Actually if only facebook could have a proper database of the links we shared, or the conversations/messages we had with our friends, a few years down the road, we could literally just visit our past through all the conversations on Facebook..

OH I just remembered, A few years ago, I actually sent myself a future msg...There was this website that would help you send an email to your ownself in like 4 years time ( I think you can set it to send in the future)...and in that mail you actually address: Dear Future Me:

The idea is quite cool right!! but I really forgot when I am supposed to receive it..I kinda of remember it should be 2010, so maybe i'll receive an email from myself soon, or maybe the server closed down, or maybe it's just a joke..

I can't even remember what i wrote in that message anymore..which just signifies how ppl can change unknowingly,

Exams are coming soon again, it seems like I have lost contact with many old friends, people have changed....things have changed...from what I read from my previous articles, I have changed...emo.

AH!! lets just enjoy my final 1 1/2 years first!!

Year 3 sem 1 1st half

I'm overloading myself again..but you gotta grab opportunities that come by right?

Thoughts before term starts

1) Humans have the unique ability to think rationally, but yet act emotionally...

2) But if they can think and act rationally they'll just be an organic robot.

3) It's easy to be fooled by randomness. It's hard to explain randomness when it is random.

4) If you can get fooled by a bot over in MSN, it probably means you're fool. Or there will be a major change in the way our world functions.

5) There are more pretty girls than good looking guys, at least in Singapore.

6) If you can be a good looking guy or a pretty girl? which one will you choose?

7) I should be in computing.

8) The persona in the blog is so so different from the person I know.

9) It is too easy to judge.

apples and oranges

We sometimes like to compare apples and oranges.

People always say: A mother takes care of her child, feed him, dress him, wash him...so the child should do the same to a mother if the mother no longer have the ability to do those things herself...

But when you take care of the child, you know that in a few years time, he will grow up, and be independant, and you'll be a proud parent.

But when you are taking care of your parent, you know that she will only get worse, and the ending will be a sad one...and so there is no motivation...there is only despair...so it takes greater motivation to take care of the elderly, than of your child.

Therefore, you look at someone who takes care of his/her parent with more admiration than a parent who takes care of his/her child.