Struggling with Meaninglessness

Initially, I thought I’ve written the funniest story in my life – A Story of An Emo Boy Inspired By The Swimming Pool (Part 1). However, the more I read it, the more I realized it wasn’t really as great as I first thought. I think it is very good but not really super brilliant. I don’t deserve a standing ovation for this.

I think I made 4 mistakes while writing this story :

1. I over-emphasized on one-liners

2. I tried too hard to play with words

3. I tried to create a humour revolves around an Emo boy but didn’t give much effort to create funny imaginations in reader’s head in the story line.

4. I was experimenting of using present participle rather than the usual past participle in the writing and for some reasons, I think it diminishes the humour.

The funniest piece of story I’ve written is still A Story Never Told. Having reread it few minutes ago, I wonder if I can ever write something as funny as this again. The reason why this story was so well written was because I purely focused on telling the story in funny twisted ways without needing to play with words and one liners.

Maybe I shouldn’t call what I did as mistakes. I think it is just another way of story writing, just that it is not as funny and effective. The positive I got from this – At least now I know what makes a brilliant Exaggeration story writing and what’s above average.

Part 2 will still be released nevertheless. This Saturday, probably. Philosophical stuffs.

9.00PM I was in the bus and I just can’t work my mind to think about the two pending blog drafts I’m writing on. There’s nothing much I can do when my brain stop working, so I resolved to pull out my earphone from my bag and plugged it to my Walkman Phone.

Always on top of my playlist are songs from Fantastic Plastic Machine. To me, he is already in a God-like status. He is the one and only musician I worship. The God of House and Electronic music. I’m still listening to his music on daily basis even after 4 years of listening to his songs, over and over again. This guy’s music and mixes is just incredibly-crazily-insanely awesome.

While I was looking out the bus window, one of his songs, City Light, captivated me. I have probably listen to this song like thousand of times but the song was really captivating and special at that particular moment. Probably because I was looking at the city.

City lights, the urban landscape,
Stands before our eyes.
City lights, our lives are caught up,
In these neon lights
Oh, so very frightened the park will seem.
Yet, we do our best to cherish one another,
City lights, although I love you,
Sometimes hate with doubt.

Suddenly a question came to my head – Visually, what are the most beautiful things in a city at night?

I looked around – building lightings, car lights, signage light, street lamps, fancy neon lights. All revolved around light!

How genius of FPM! Screw those Be-One-With-Nature new age songs. In the urban landscape, the most beautiful thing around us is Light! By composing a song called City Light, he has totally captured the niche. Brilliant.

When I reached home, the first thing I did was to do some Googling to check out FPM’s updates. And then I came across something totally unthinkable. FPM is collaborating with two other House DJ musicians, called themselves Ravex and producing an album called Trax.

For the next few hours, I was totally nuts . I kept asking – Is this fucking real?

   (L-R : DJ Taku, Shinichi Osawa, Tomoyuki Tanaka)

Ravex is consist of three top Japanese Electronic/House DJs – DJ Taku (M-Flo), Shinichi Osawa (Mondo Grosso) and Tomoyuki Tanaka (Fantastic Plastic Machine). It is equivalent to Linkin Park + Limp Bizkit + Korn in the nu metal world and that’s totally insane.

A quick check on my iTunes – I have every single album of M-Flo. I have every single album of Mondo Grosso. I have every single album of FPM. And I will be dying to add this album to my collection. Electronic/House music is probably one of the few things I’m really super passionate about.

Talk is cheap. Let’s see how are they in live performance-

Shinichi Osawa looked like a Messiah in the video above, spreading happiness to these creatures drown in ecstasy. Even I was drown in this music especially around 4:25 minute mark. Next Wave is my favourite Mondo Grosso album and this song Everything Needs Love, is certainly one of my top favourite House music.

I’m serious when I say this – I’m willing to shorten my life span by 1 day if I ever get a chance to watch M-Flo’s concert. They are probably the most charismatic performer around that I know. Again, DJ Taku looks like a Messiah and with all the fancy disco lights it is as though he is shining some super power to the crowd.

And lastly, one of their collaborated songs – Ravex : 1 More Night feat Monkey Majik

AWESOME! And oh yeah. The Japanese, are the most creative musicians on Earth. I have probably said this 2321332324 times but I don’t mind to say it 2321332325th time again.

For the past 8 months, I’ve watched every single moment of Rafa winning …

   The French Open Roland Garros 2008 Grand Slam Champion,

   June 2008 (Clay court beating Federer)

   Wimbledon Championships 2008 Grand Slam Champion,

   July 2008 (Grass court beating Federer)

   Beijing Olympics 2008 Gold Winner,

   August 2008 (Hard court beating Gonzalez)

   The Australian Open 2009 Grand Slam Champion,

    January 2009 (Hard court beating Federer)

OK, I admit I missed the first 3 rounds of The Australian Open since I was working during the weekday afternoon. But I was following the live score all the time OK!

All the best tennis matches that I’ve watches so far came in these 8 months -

1. Rafael Nadal vs Roger Federer @ Wimbledon Final 2008

2. Rafael Nadal vs Roger Federer @ The Australian Open Final 2009

3. Rafael Nadal vs Fernando Verdasco @ The Australian Open Semi Final 2009

4. Rafael Nadal vs Novak Djokovic @ The Queen’s Final 2008

OK, I’m biased here because it is pretty obvious I will not put it in the list if Rafa has lost any of the games above. Who cares.

I feel sorry looking at tearful Roger. But I really hope Roger will win   the history-breaking 14th Grand Slam or possibly 15th soon. But well, if only he could find a way to beat the unstoppable Nadal that is.

Cheers to the King of Clay. To be honest, Rafa is still not as good as Roger in terms of technique yet. But Rafa’s physical fitness, mental strength and the never-give-up attitude is unmatched by any athletes in this world.  He is the ‘Moving Wall’. He is only 22 and I’m sure Rafa will soon transform to King of Tennis in few years time. Oh well, he IS the number 1 in the world now anyway. I’m looking forward to more heart-stopping and adrenalin rushing games from these 2 players in the future.

For now, Vamos Rafa!

I don’t feel like writing much this week, so I will post more pictures instead.

First up, I took a so called comprehensive personality test and this was my result:

(click to enlarge)

I’m not really sure whether this character strength ranking is really accurate to describe me well but I think the first three and last three strength are probably placed correctly. Probably.

Arts!!

You know, I actually really love arts. Not those kind of ‘picasso-ish’ abstract arts that always confuse people, rather, those modern and trendy arts that depict fashionable ladies stylishly. I’m totally crazy over them it is almost a fetish to me. I have plenty of these arts in digital format in my computer, but I think nothing beats the real piece of printed artwork on a physical paper.

Without any doubts, Jason Brooks is on top of the game when it comes to stylish arts. Yes, get me one of these for my birthday present, and I will give you a kiss, alright?

The price for these arts are kinda steep especially after the conversion rate (Ringgit to Pounds). But I swear I will get few of these artworks one day, frame them up nicely and put it up in my room.  Wooo~

So for the mean time while waiting for the day to come, I will support our local Malaysian art which is way more affordable for myself – like PlasterDoll!

Obviously, Plasterdoll is not as brilliant as Jason Brooks’ arts, but I still like it nevertheless. It comes the closest to what I really like at a decent price – ladies in stylish fashion.

I got one of these recently and planned to get another one soon when I have the time. Actually, the art is too girlish for myself, so I would want to keep them and give it away as gifts to friends.

Penang Jazz Festival

I went to Penang (320 kilometers away from Kuala Lumpur) during the weekend for a Jazz Festival. Overall, it was a good Jazz Festival. I’ve told myself that if this festival is 70% as good as Kenny G’s concert I attended last April, then I will be satisfied. Well, I would say it pretty much hit the mark. Kenny G’s performance is still the best live Jazz performance I’ve watched to date, so it’s normal I would want to benchmark against it every time I go to a Jazz concert/festival.

Out of 12 performers, I was really impressed with 3 groups – Jaume Vilaseca Quartet (Spain), Jeon Young Se Trio (Korea) and Ray Harris with Fusion Experience (UK).

I bought Jeon Young Se Trio’s CD and managed to get their autograph! Woo Waa! But the best performance over the 2 days was from Ray Harris. It blew me off .. totally. However, their music weren’t consistently great. Only 2 out of 5 was brilliant. Jeon Young Se Trio on the other hand, is consistently great throughout.

I will certainly want to attend the festival again if they are going to hold it next year.

A Journey to Complication

When it comes to food, my friends dislike going to popular tourist areas to eat (eg. Gurney Drive) because those hawkers often overcharge the prices. (But hey! We ARE tourists too! =P ) Hence, we often search for authentic local food places to eat every time. Well, being a guy who has no opinion when it comes to food, I let my friends to decide all the time.

On the second day, we’d decided to visit a really famous place in Penang for lunch, well known as the best ‘Asam Laksa’ in the country. However, we weren’t sure of the directions to the place, so we just relied on the signboards to guide us. We went around on and on, stuck in the traffic jam, took the wrong turn, then stuck in more traffic jam again. After 2 hours of searching, I mildly suggested – “Should we give up the plan and eat somewhere else since we are in the town anyway?”

But my friends insisted to go on. Naturally, I asked myself why? To me, that’s a really strange decision to spend more time searching for the place considering we have wasted 2 hours. (I wasn’t angry nor agitated, just curious.)

Right away, it reminded me the behaviour of a typical gambler in the casino. We can safely assume that every gambler goes in to the casino with an unshakable belief that he will win, or else why would he wanna go there in the first place? So, imagine the gambler has $10,000 in his hands. He plays roulette and keep betting on the number 18 every round. After losing 10 rounds or so, he is left with $5,000. Some rare gambler may think – “I think I have no luck today, so I better get off now before I lose everything!”  But for hardcore gamblers, they usually think the other way round – “I believe I will eventually win, all I have to do is to keep trying”. Well, unless the gambler is lucky on that day or else, usually this is the typical mindset of gamblers who will lose all their money to the casino.

I realized that when individuals invested a huge amount of resources (money, time, effort, etc) into something deemed important, they will naturally see it as an ‘investment’. For many people, to give up half way the journey is a taboo because it is equivalent of pointlessly throwing all the investment into the sea – There will be a sense of unsatisfactory or a mini-grudge inside us, an unwillingness to give up all the things we have put in to accomplish the journey. I feel this refuse-to-give-up-investment can be applied to a wide range of area especially to our belief system (superstitious belief, ideologies, mindset, etc.), hence, explaining why many people always resist to changes and also resist to contradicting beliefs.

“We have already spent 2 hours looking for the place, why not keep looking for it, so that the 2 hours spent is justified at the end?”. I can feel that’s the voices in my friends’ head.

After another hour, we finally found the place. But the place was packed like hell. We have to wait another 30 minutes before we got a place to sit. And another 15 minutes before the food arrived, 15 minutes of eating and another 30 minutes to get out of the area once we were done. Total damage – 4 hours and 30 minutes spent for several bowl of noodles … and several cups of sugar cane drink.

I was thinking, looking from economics point of view, was the decision efficient? Did the resources spent (cost) justified the benefit we got at the end? I guess for most people, psychologically, it’s hugely rewarding to spend large amount of resources to attain huge satisfaction, just like a guy who will get a huge satisfaction after spending huge amount of resources to chase a girl. But again, was the decision to keep going on after 2 hours really efficiently justifiable? I don’t know, I’m not a person who live to eat, so it’s not fair for me to judge the value of good food.

Again, I wasn’t agitated with the whole scenario. I just find it curiously interesting on how our mind works…

All in all, it was a really fun experience, we had some really really funny moments in the hotel where we laughed till our tummy hurts. I always enjoy all these humorous experience.

Trivia Conversation

A friend of mine shared a very interesting story with me. There was a species of baboon (or was it monkey? I forgot) which already thought be extinct since the early 90s due to overhunting by human being. But recently, it was actually discovered that there are many of them left in one forest. So how did these baboons evaded human radar and stayed in stealth from human eyes all these years?

First they recognized that human was a super threat, so unlike other primates which will make loud noises to alert their tribe of danger, these baboons will remain silent instead. They ‘know’ making loud noise is futile to escape from human (as we use guns). Secondly, they are using a very primitive form of sign language to communicate with their tribe whenever they encounter a human to plan an escape.

Natural selection and Evolution has forced these primates’ psychology to up one notch. I’ve long envisioned that there will come a day when human being may enslave chimpanzees and primates to do labour work for us once these primates intelligence reach certain level.

Realizations. Realizations. Oh btw, I miss writing long, deep and abstract essays….

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, my mum bought several DVDs of a Hong Kong paranormal TV show known as ‘Gwai Tan’ (translated literally as ‘Strange Conversation’). I can tell you, this show is fun to watch.

In the first part of every episode, they will show the documentary of their journey around Asian countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Taiwan to explore and discover the art of local black magic and also visiting very spooky places. In the second part of the show, the hosts will have conversation with a ‘sifu’ (master) to talk about various paranormal events.

I have already spent some 20 hours watching this show and some of my favourite highlights are:

• The host of the show shared his story of how he dreamt that he walked around his neighbourhood and then he saw a big fire at an apartment nearby. Initially after he woke up, he brushed it off as ‘just-another-dream’ but soon realized, there was indeed a fire taking place nearby his house.
• Many GRO and prostitutes in Thailand use ‘magic water’ which is made of the girl’s menstrual blood mixed with frog’s juice (the frog is smashed alive and then extracted the liquid) to charm their customers. Apparently, these GRO and prostitute said it worked well. In Malaysia, they use ‘Chin Oil’ instead where a corpse is burned and oil extracted from the corpse’s chin is stored in a small bottle.
• A story of a Hong Kong citizen of how she was possessed when she was holidaying at Macau. There was an inner voice in her head which kept urging her to jump off the hotel room. And when she wanted to leave the room, there was a ‘force’ which kept pulling her back.
• A HongKong celebrity (not revealed) shared her experience after having a concert in Genting Highlands in Malaysia. She was forewarned by the authorities in Genting not to visit the 7th floor in certain hotel, but out of curiosity she still pressed 7th on the lift to see what the floor is all about. However, the whole floor was sealed with bricks. The very same night after her concert performance, she took the same lift back to her room at 16th floor, then when she steps out of the lift, it is as thought she was trapped in another dimension. She kept moving around the floor to find the exit but no matter where she went, she will end up in the same place all over again. Until when suddenly the lift opened up and some tourist came out of the lift only then the hallucination spell is broken.
• In the scenario above, the ‘Sifu’ said that when such thing happens, from a 3rd person point of view, this person will just keep walking in a circle around a spot but in the victim’s head, he/she will struggle to find the exit by exploring the forest (but always ending up at the same spot). It’s like a dream. It happens frequently in the hill and forest at night.
• During an exploration of an abandoned hospital in Thailand, one of the crew members lightly kicked away a wheel chair as it was blocking his path while he was investigating a room. After that, strange things start taking place. Bottles on the shelf start dropping on the floor, windows start to break, door open and closed itself and the environment became ‘noisy’ with unknown voices. When things looked to be serious, the ‘sifu’ urged everyone to move out of the building and then while they are leaving via staircase (from the 2nd floor to ground floor), they saw the wheelchair was right infront of the staircase, blocking them from leaving. After doing a little ceremony to appease the spirit and pushed back the wheel chair to the room, they proceeded to leave. But the moment they stepped out of the room, the cameraman caught the wheelchair of moving by itself, and the ‘Sifu’ urged everyone to pretend not to see a thing and quickly exit the building.
• In cemetery, it is said that you can often see ‘glowing orbs’ floating around at night. Looking from scientific point of view, those are a kind of energy which will be released by corpse, not only by dead human, but also by animals. So, if you ever mysteriously see a floating orb around, it indicates there’s a dead body around.
• In a forest, 3 crew members saw several pair of bright red eyes (pure red as they didn’t use any flashes or lightings) staring at them from the top of tree. Curiously they went and check out the tree. The ‘sifu’ shouted very loudly to them not to go near the tree as it’s very haunted over there but these 3 people actually couldn’t hear him. It’s only when the sifu dragged them out of the area with his hand then they knew what was going on. They said they couldn’t hear any voices or shouting of the ‘sifu’. It was as though they were sealed away from the reality.
• The documentary of brutal murder of 3 year old girl, Oii Ying Ying in Penang, Malaysia. The spirit of Oii Ying Ying possessed one of the crew member when the ‘sifu’ was holding a ceremony to invite her spirit back to home.

And many more very interesting stuffs. So interesting that I’ve started to create theories of how ghost and spirits affect human being, scientifically.

It’s hard for me to be superstitious after watching a Japanese TV series called as TRICK one or two years ago, as I’ve learned not to take seemingly paranormal or spooky stuffs easily. (TRICK is about a journey of a magician and a physicist who visited various village to investigate paranormal stuffs such as spirits and some individual who claimed that they are divine beings with divine power.)

I remember one of the stories in TRICK of how the magician came across a room which gave a clear warning sign : DO NOT ENTER. OR ELSE YOU WILL BE STRANGLED TO DEATH BY A GHOST CHILD. Refuse to believe the existence of spirits, she went inside the room. Suddenly, the door was automatically shut and she was trapped inside. Then she began to feel hard to breathe as if someone was choking her and almost fainted. Not long after that, the physicist rescued her from the room and she claimed emphatically there’s a small kid in the room strangling her. After a round of investigation, the physicist claimed that the reason why it was hard for her to breathe was because there’s a hot spring under the room which will emit certain vapor through the floor. Hence, when she was trapped in the room, the density of the vapor is stronger than oxygen, therefore oxygen couldn’t get inside the room. Coupled with the psychological effect that there’s a small kid spirit around, that’s the reason why it is hard for her to breathe and thinking there was someone choking her.

So, I often carry “It’s-Strange. I-Do-Not-Know” mindset when watching Gwai Tan discussing or discovering the unknowns, rather than jumping to conclusions. But at the same time, it’s difficult to refute all these seemingly paranormal stuffs.

But finally, there was one topic they discussed which I could very well refute. The discussion started of how some people who practiced meditation, after able to achieve the state of emptiness, begun to feel that as if a devil has overtaken their body. It is as though they become another person and he/she will start to unleash bad things from their personality and their behaviour change drastically. Then the ‘sifu’ promptly explained that meditation should be done alongside experts because when a person goes very deep in meditation, spirits and devils could start to overtake the body and the mind.

After many hours of watching the show, for the first time, I could point my finger to the TV and utter the word – “nonsense!”

I will tell you how the mind works and why there’s no devil in meditation in the next post.

(Humming Urban Stereo – Baby Love)

7.30 AM in the morning.

I’ve been writing an essay for 20 hours+ over the last 3 days. Plenty of editing as it is a pretty difficult topic to dissect and tackle. Already scraped out 2 drafts, and hopefully this will be the final one.

Back with the music, I hope I’m not being biased to repeat again that the Japanese and Korean are the most creatively consistent when it comes to producing good non-mainstream music.

So, for the mean time .. let me enjoy these good moments first.

(Humming Urban Stereo – Hawaiian Couple)

Below is the list of the best things i’d came across in the past 2-3 weeks….

Best Article.

• The Moral Instinct by Steven Pinker.

Even if i have to repeat myself one thousand times, i will do. This is the best article I’ve read in, not only in 1-2 months, but many many months perhaps the entire year. Insightful, critical, creative, counter-intuitive and thought provoking. At my level, i can only dream of writing an essay as compelling and brilliant as this.

To be honest, i’ve been bored to death with the recent science articles i could find at Digg and Reddit. So refreshing to read something as amazing as this.

The most captivating quote in the article is certainly this – The reason for these double standards (moral values) is obvious: people tend to align their moralization with their own lifestyles.

It’s a 7,000+ words article on morality and psychology… and i wish it could be longer…

Best Book.

• Human : The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique by Michael Gazzaniga

I admit, it was a little gamble buying this book as it was wrapped and i didn’t have a chance to take a sneak peek inside the book. But you know what made me bought this book? It was the testimonial by ….. Steven Pinker! and also V.S. Ramachandran (a famous neuroscientist).

And this book went beyond my expectation. It was brilliant. A book which covers everything about human being from Psychology, Neuroscience to Evolution to Genetics to Philosophy of Mind. I will put this book as one of the top 5 books i have ever read.

Best Blog

• Overcomingbias.com

This is a blog which i have been following for several months already. Eliezer Yudkowsky, one of the co-bloggers, is a brilliant thinker, enough said. I wish there’s a technology where I could use a USB drive to copy his brain and transfer everything he knows into mine.

Best Song

Bob Sinclar – I Feel For You (Funky Disco House)

I got this song from the album Bargrooves Bar Anthems (unfortunately this album is  just below average). Gosh, i feel like dancing now. Not a big fan of Bob Sinclar’s music though (with the exception of 2 of his songs – World Hold On & Love Generation) but was surprised to learn that this song I Feel For You is already 8 years old … since the year 2000.

I Love Disco House Music!

Best Video @ Youtube

I’ve watched countless videos over YouTube recently. But there’s only one video which keeps me playing over and over again. That’s La Caina’s performance at Ibiza with the song Le Vent m’a dit, one of my all time favourite Bossa Nova songs. (4 of my top 10 favourite Bossa Nova songs came from La Caina).

My only tiny dissatisfaction with the performance is the replacement of trumpet with flute. The original version of the song which uses trumpet, sounds much more smoother and mellow compared to this version which uses flute. Nevertheless, brilliant performance.

I Love Live Jazz/Bossa Nova Performance!

Best Quote

• “What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.” - Christopher Hitchens on God and Religion.

How I wish I’d came across this little wisdom earlier. It would have certainly prevented me from wasting plenty of digital ink and time denouncing the imaginary friend called God. Thinking about it, it is equivalent to a man spending several months researching and dissecting magic show, arguing and conclude that magic show is not real magic but only tricks and illusions – how meaningless to argue on something so obvious and perhaps self-evident.

Best Trivia

• Where is the South of South Pole?

I stared at world map for 3 -4minutes like a curious chimpanzee and then only realize that there’s no such thing as the South of South Pole. Oh no, my mind is working so slowww……..

Best Thing I’ve Learned

• An intelligent alien will bear close resemblance with human being. If intelligent aliens exist, they will have to walk upright like how human being do (instead of remaining four legged like animals) because intelligence needs hands.

I got to learn about this from Eliezer @ overcomingbias.com. Perhaps there’s nothing much amazing with this for you, but personally for me, i find it very interesting of how important our hands are to us and our intelligence. One example would be – Writing. If you have played the game Civilization before (voted as one of the best PC games of all time) you will know the importance of learning Writing as it is the core of every civilization’s technological progress. If we’d remained 4 legged and couldn’t free our hands, Writing will not exist and there will be no alphabets (communication is severed), no transfer of knowledge (no books), no mathematics (no scientific progress), no code of law,  no money currency and all which will lead to .. no Internet.

And Writing is just one of the many important things we can do with our hands.

At the moment, i’m concentrating to read more on Psychology and Evolution (i’ve stopped reading on physics) just to keep up with the flow i’ve been in these days.

Recently, i keep thinking day and night of …..

Crisis Core : Final Fantasy VII …

Crisis Core : Final Fantasy VII …

Crisis Core : Final Fantasy VII …

9 years ago, when i was 13, Final Fantasy 7 was my favourite game on PlayStation.

9 years later, which is today, my favourite game on Playstation Portable is Crisis Core : Final Fantasy 7.

I think Final Fantasy 7 is the best RPG game EVER created in mankind history.

Just admire the CG of this game. I think this is the best computer animation graphic i have seen to date. (Yes, please do show me if you come across better ones recently.)

Not to forget the greatest orchestral soundtrack. Ever. Ever. One Winged Angel by Nobuo Uematsu. Pure genius.

I will take a short break in blogging. I need to spend less time reading + thinking and spend more time with this game. I’m totally hooked. All hail the Japanese, Banzai!

Sounds so wrong …

1. My blog’s PageRank jumped from 0 to 5 overnight! I’m pretty sure it is some funny Google bugs. I mean, a blog with only averagely 70 clicks a day got a PR of 5? NooOo waay….

Anyway,  i’m just using this blog as a personal journal to share some interesting thoughts with myself and my friends, and i surely do not intend to ‘market’ this blog to the public. Well, i’m glad some random people bumped into this blog (via search engine) and were pretty tolerant towards my average English. LoL.

2. I joined the first ever DotA tournament on last weekend and my team was pretty unfortunate to lose in the first round! Wrong strategy. Sucks.

I have never achieved anything big in gaming after ending up as a runner-up in a small Counter-Strike competition 7 years ago. Oh, time flies. I guess i’m a rusty gamer right now who just spend my time with my PlayStation Portable playing stupid games. Haha. Should i get myself a Wii? Fun!

3. My internship with MindValley was over last week. Not only it is the coolest place to work in Malaysia, also I’m really glad to have such opportunity to work for them.

February was certainly the most productive month for myself in the office in terms of learning as they have now the weekly Tuesday + Thursday meetings. Let’s see what i can do with the stuffs i have learned and came across. I wish them all the best.

4. Bought 3 new books – Insights of Genius (Art & Science), Stumbling on Happiness and 4 Hour Workweek. All of these books are genuinely good stuffs. Currently also reading books on Adolf Hitler. Another great stuff. He is more than just a tyrant, he is a brilliant dark-thinker.

And btw, Michio Kaku is gonna release his new book – Physics of the Impossible next week! Oh, i can’t wait. I can’t waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait~~~

5. Thinking of attending Psychology classes in the future… just for fun…. if i could make enough money to provide myself such extend to do it.. haha.

It took me more than 12 hours over the span of 3 days to complete my previous post, Intelligence : Nature vs Nurture vs Random. This is certainly not my first time spending a great deal of time writing out a post. I clearly remember it took me a quarter to half of a day to write the post Science isn’t Strange. We Are. 

It is not as if i started writing a post from scratch without having any ideas on what to write. I have them in my head. All of them. Rather, it was the process of ‘translating’ my thoughts to words which sucked my time away. It’s pretty absurd to me – what’s so difficult writing my thoughts down? But this is in fact some pretty stubborn obstacle in me. I can still vividly recall my writing experience 18 months ago when i took 3-4 hours to construct a nice little post (roughly around 1,000 words) to support my argument in a discourse. Within 30 minutes, i received an equally long reply from the opposite side. I was like .. wtf? Is that guy extraordinary good in writing or am i just being horrendous? 18 months later, which is today, i realised, the speed of my writing did not even improved by a bit.

Talking about talent, I know i have zero talent in writing. Absolutely ‘un-gifted’. I’m slow in expressing my complex ideas in words, my vocabulary is shallow and it seems i’m prone to occasional grammar mistakes too. I was reluctant to start a blog initially. I questioned – why do i need to start a blog when i can effortless construct ideas in my head? However, i was pretty glad i gave blogging a chance. Blogging and writing is surely a mentally exhaustive and time-consuming activity for myself, but i have to admit, for some strange reasons, i think it is fun. It is fun to express my ideas in words.

As a winner of a business idea competition organised by MDeC (Multimedia Development Corporation Malaysia) 2 years ago, I thought of sharing plenty of business ideas especially on the internet and Web 2.0 arena i’d conceived all along these years. But suddenly in recent months, i totally lost my passion in business ideas. Looking back at all the blog posts i have written all these months, i noticed i have only been covering topics on science and philosophy. Ahhh… perhaps the problems and questions posed by science and philosophy is more challenging than the ones in business area? I do not know, but i know i’m enjoying what i’m writing in this blog.

I guess this is one of the rare moments where i will write something personal in this blog. I’m not entirely fond of writing personal stuffs anyway because, well, there’s nothing much interesting and colourful with my life. Strange it may sound, but i’m extremely comfortable with this dull life of mine.

Working on SocialRank has allowed me to look deep into bloggers’ activities, interests and thoughts. One popular topic i noticed recently is “8 Random Facts About Me” where bloggers randomly tell eight things about themselves. So, i guess i will join the bandwagon and write something about myself too. The following is the summary.

1. I talk to myself… all the time…. vocally. And no, i’m not weird … many people have this habit too! *covers up*

2. I have two inner voices in my head. 

3. I always have the feeling of an invisible hand massaging my brains and a swift flow of stream traveling around my head and forehead whenever i’m in deep concentration. From a scientific perspective, some people said it is the electromagnetic field, and we could feel it when we meditate as we lower down our body defense system. On a spiritual perspective, that is ‘Prana’, some life-force thingy. Hmm …

4. I have an inflexible tongue and I can’t speak clearly in soft tone.  Whenever i speak, i not only have to concentrate on my thoughts, but also i have to place a piece of my concentration on my tongue so that i can pronounce the words properly. That’s why sometimes talking is tiring to me.

5. I have a little difficulty in writing. I always wish i could write more fluently. I still do not understand why – i could effortlessly articulate an entire idea in my head but whenever i’m gonna write it down in words, it will not be as a fluent.

6. I can semi-control my dream occasionally… or am i not? I thought maybe so since i could conceived ideas out in my dreams (with critical thoughts) and sometimes i could call myself to wake up from my dream. I just feel my consciousness is semi-linked with my dream. Perhaps, it is just my illusion after all?

7. My ambition – to become an accomplished thinker by 26 years old.

8. My ambition# 2 – to live a decent life without working hard. i still believe there is shortcuts in life and i’m seeking them.

I’m a very curious boy since i was young. Even a small tiny detail could light my curiosity up and made me spend hours pondering on them. Thinking back, my curiosity capacity was at the peak when i was between 7 to 12 years old. However, without my awareness, my curiosity suddenly became ‘idle’ for the next 8 years. Perhaps, i was too overwhelmed by so many unanswered questions that i found it so pointless to be curious anymore then. But thanks to the Internet and emergence of Web 2.0, where knowledge and discussions are so accessible, I recovered my curiosity back 2 years ago when i came across a forum. The topic of the thread happened to be discussing something which i had intently contemplate when i was 7 years old – Does God exist?

Suddenly, i realised everything i questioned when i was a kid have meaningful answers in this Internet age. After spending 3-4 months reading about religion and scientific(evolution) point of view, i drew my own conclusion that religion’s God should not exist (i wasn’t 100% convinced back then). But if religion is not the answer to the existence of humanity & universe, what is the real answer? And that leads me to all of my current interests such as physics, science, astronomy, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, etc. which point to a common theme -  How, & Why does the universe and life exist?

Gifted with strong memory, i could remember all the things i’d pondered on when i was a kid. Apart from God, i also questioned :-

• I noticed from a picture of heaven and hell that God, Deities and devil are depicted very traditionally. If Heaven and Hell exist, do they follow earthly technological advancement? Meaning, does car exist in heaven right now? Do devils use gun now instead of fork to torture the ’sinful’ people in hell? Will God dressed in T-shirt instead of traditional robes?
• If i dig a hole here all the way to the other side of the earth, will i still be considered as an illegal immigrant? (the answer is yes )
• I played around with some rice in a bucket. There are plentiful of rice in the bucket. I take away one grain of rice and it will still be plentiful. But if i consistently taking away one grain of rice at a time, to what extent it will no longer be considered as plentiful?
• I wondered why am i scared of cockroach when these little friends do not hurt me (yes, i’m still frightened by cockroach now). In fact, i’m terrified with almost all kind of insects (except for ant, fly and mosquito). Why do i like dogs and rabbits but not insects?
• Why did the moon and stars follows me wherever i go?
• Why can a fish breathe in water but human cant’? (i experimented it myself and got myself choked lol)
• Why can’t i grab water?
• Can i shout so loud, the other side of the earth hear me?
• Is there a way to burn rubbish without emitting smoke?
• My mum could always tell that i’m bluffing and predict what i’m gonna up to. I always suspected that she has some psychic ability listening to my inner voice.
• I was standing roughly 4-5 metres away from the TV. I stretched my arm forward, and by extending my palm, i could blocked the TV from my vision. Compared to the size of my palm, the TV is so small. But as i move forward, the TV gets bigger and bigger, and as i stood right in front of the TV, my palm is so much more smaller compared to the TV. Why?
• I thought of something exactly like the Zeno’s paradox of the Achilles and Tortoise (conceptually). Up to this day, i still can’t find a reason why was i thinking about that.

And some other lamer and nonsensical stuffs. I think it is rather a blessing to have such curious mind. I always thought it is natural for everyone to be curious on everything, but as i grow up i realised not everyone has the higher level of curiosity in them.

In my next post, i will post an explanation to one of the mysteries i came across during my childhood – why do human have different looks but cats, dogs and rats all look the same?