QuGee Updates » Tags » Brain and Food

One observation I have made is that those who are most knowledgable are those who would readily admit that they did not know something. Thinking back at the old days, the number of times my friends talked about something I had no idea about and I pretended to roll along with it.

It was the same with Islam. I wonder how many Muslims out there would admit that they don’t know Islam and would want to learn the Quran or learn to pray. Yet, most of us would be afraid to admit ignorance. The problem with that is, we will always be in a state of ignorance. I am so glad I have taken steps to rectify my life.

I realise I only have a handful of people who can talk to me about things which are thought provoking. Moreover, this group is quickly deminishing. Those who I used to share my thoughts with are long and gone. New priorities in life. For me, I have re-found my interest in philosophical and religious discourses. If there is anything I am truly passionate about in life is the exchange of thoughts, knowledge and ideas.

I realise I am a happier person lately because I have the ability to think, reason and present structured argument. I want to try and use social media to reach out to people of similar interests, and perhaps move some of my less personal blogposts to a new public blog.

I remember back in uni there was a time when Vincent (my Buddhist friend) and I attended a lecture by a Sheik during the ‘Islamic Discovery Week’. At the end of the lecture the Q&A session became a fierce debate between Christianity and Islam. I remembered I put up my hands and wanted to ask the Sheik instead of what the Qu’ran talked about religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism which seems to be an area which was greatly missed out in all the multi-faith debates.

I think I should be glad I didn’t have the opportunity to ask the question because if I think about it, the debate would disintegrate into polytheism and the violation of the concept of Tawhid – the oneness of God: the first pillar of Islam and embodiment of the entire belief system of Islam; God is only one and that He has no partners, He is the only one worthy of worship. However, it would be the spirituality not their object of worship of these religions which I would be more interested to finding out what the Quran and Islam talks about.

Anyhow, I have been doing some digging lately. Like the kid in Paulo Coelho’s Alchemist, I have come across many signs lately, and have read a several stories of Sheikhs finding their ‘personal legend’ and their stories of travels, dreams and metaphysical experiences which I do not have the ability to put in words. Amongst many of them, I came across Rene Guenon. He was a French born spiritualist (from 1800s) who later became a Sufi sheikh in Egypt. He saw the corruption of morality and spirituality in modern society which at that time in Europe meant pinnacle of logical thinking and scientific enlightenment. He was inspired by what he called the orientalist religions in particular Hinduism (as well as Taoism and lesser extent Buddhism) and pioneered some of the terms such as Esoteric and Exoteric truth. I was particularly interested in him because of Martin Lings. Lings was a Shakespearean Expert who studied English Literature in Oxford University early 1900s I was actually first introduced to him (without knowing it was him) through my teacher in Madrassah in Hong Kong. It was his book which I was supposed to read: the life of Prophet Muhammad. It wasn’t until last year when I listened to a lecture about Shakespeare that I had a new found respect for him. Lings found one of Guenon’s books and was inspire to learn under him in Egypt.

It wasn’t until lately I have reaffirmed that despite all the written materials readily available in print, the bulk of the knowledge is still of an oral tradition. There is an importance attached to finding your own sheikh whether he should live in East Jerusalem, the deserts of Muratania or if he should find you on the street of Shibuya (As of the story of the imam of the mosque in Tokyo). Insha’Allah (God willing) when I am ready, I shall embark on my personal legend to find the truth beyond the truth. I feel the time is nearing and am just waiting for the sign.

I am starting to wonder if I am passing the line of sanity. I have been thinking, or should I say philosophising, so much that I am starting to loose interest in this world. I have been labelled “the thinker” and once again, I lament over the fact that I hadn’t spend 3 years of university life philosophising but instead chose to understand whiteboards followed by whiteboards of Greek letters placed in strange combination with it’s respective subscripts and superscripts.

No harm done I say because nowadays I spend most of my time awake just thinking. Sometimes my head would hurt because I think too much. I think if one day if I should become a mad person residing in the alps of Switzerland or get stuck in a corner of some London library, I should not be surprised.

Instead though, I have decided to immerse my thoughts in Sufism and trying to understand a reality beyond our reality. Some people, actually, most, people would think I have just gone insane; I did graduate from a top science university. That is not to say I do not believe science explains anything, but instead science allow mankind to utilise our logic, reason and cognitive ability to achieve a greater convenience for our fellow human brothers and sisters, and to live harmoniously with other species around us. I think science is great and one of the reasons I went to do Engineering.

I still maintain there is another reality to ours. Another dimension perhaps for physicists – after all there are infinite dimensions according to Quantum Mechanics, and I suppose it was that which Hollywood uses to make hits like that of Source Code. The existence of dimensions outside the normal 3 dimensions is beyond the comprehension of a normal human being in an empirical sense. Perhaps we wish to make use of such theories in our plan for the future, but the fact that we can’t predict an earthquake in probably one of the most earthquake prepared countries in the world illustrates that there is a force beyond ours which we cannot control. As a continuation of my previous blogpost, science can as so far as interpolate based on past sequence of data. That is what we do in Speech Recognition; we use a lot of available data to train up a model which could predict and analyse what an unknown source is about to say. Still, we get annoyed whilst driving shouting out things like “call home” and the woman in the system asks “call mom is that correct?”….no you stupid woman! So the point I am making is that our understanding of this world is purely based on our (collective) past experience. When something out of our range of experience hits us, we are left unprepared and catastrophically destroyed.

I therefore maintain that knowledge must come from an external unseen source which is not bound by the concept of time-space and using the old age cosmological theory for the existence of God, this external source of knowledge must be an unmoved being, who in my opinion is God.

As I am about to sleep tonight after a rather un-productive day, I have thought through many things which are bothering me and deciding how I am going to take effective steps to change it.

I have decided that I shall not return to my old ways. Instead, there must be a way I could realise things for what they really are but not the way I think it ought to be. Honestly, I am stuck in such a conundrum for so long now that the only way I could get myself out of it is by unwinding everything and begin to see it from another perspective.

As human beings we have the capability to extend our thoughts to interpolate our own version of reality based on the existential information we have. For instance, looking at a basketball, we can assume that because we see one side of the sphere, that in fact the basketball is spherical. Likewise, we do a a lot of assumptions on the reality based on the way we assume the world works. E.g. Tomorrow I will wake up at 8am to go to work, have lunch with the same colleagues I have lunch with and then come home. The fact that this happens routinely and periodically, I use the past information to predict what is about to happen. However, it is also because of our dependence on the ability to interpolate we fall into the trap of accepting our immediate situations. At least speaking from experience, I find myself finding new ways to escape the so-called ‘real world’.

Back to the idea of interpolation, I had a slight paradigm shift today whereby I start to see realities from a different angle. It is then do I realise what a fool I have been for a while. A fool I say! I really don’t understand the world. I feel extremely ignorant in so many respect that I want to dig a big hole and bury myself in it. Yet, the luxury is not mine to have.

I have decided to become more me. I will stop brushing people away. I will treat people nicer. I will smile more. I will make an effort to say good morning to people in the morning. I will put on less of a mask to people around me. Just be genuine…I guess if I approach everything with a pure heart, the truth will manifest itself.

I need Divine guidance, but the question is, even if the guidance is given, do I have the wisdom to follow it?

Perhaps you would’ve seen this before. Especially those who have been to Africa, you would appreciate the powerful message behind this picture.

I woke up yesterday rather energised after reading Leslie Hazelton’s blog post (www.accidentaltheologist.com) on Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism. It’s something I totally agree with her with. I was so impressed by her blogpost that I’ve decided to comment on it as well.

It’s true that it wasn’t until I came to the UK when I encountered antisemitism. Before, it was always textbook stuff you read about. However, perhaps with war on Gaza, then the floatilla and more Israel-Palestine issue, the level of antisemitism has definitely risen. Of course, the other side is also true, with 9/11, July 7th, uprising in the Middle East, Islamophobia – as much as I hate that word – has also risen. It’s one thing if you know a Jew or a Muslim and you say, oh, it’s ok, he’s a moderate Jew/Muslim, he’s a nice guy – but yet have entrenched views about ‘the Jews’ or ‘the Muslims’. Too often a time I came across a Muslim telling me, “those Jews blah blah blah blah blah” and perhaps because I’ve studied the religion so in depth during my A-Levels that I get a great sense of repulsion upon hearing it. I am quite vocal about my distaste towards antisemetic comments, and most Muslims who have seen that side of find me extremely strange. Perhaps I am. I am not Jewish, and I hate with utter rage what they are doing to the Palestinians, but I will voice for them (your so call moderate Jews) if necessary. Then they will say, “Oh, I don’t hate Jews, I just hate the Zionists.” (Because in the Quran there are a lot of reference to Jews, and how they are also God’s people but has issues with them because of their inability to accept Jesus and Muhammed as prophets.) To me, someone who lives in diaspora for 7 years now, I understand the desire for a homeland. Call them Zionists, Israelis whatever you want, they do deserve a homeland. However, I know how sensitive the issue of Jerusalem is and I shall not go into the debate here. Either way, what Leslie Hazleton said on her blogpost, I 100% agree with. Perhaps the whole Peter King incident is playing out in America right now, (which I have to say, I am very impressed with the turnout against this ‘bigot’), everyone is suddenly talking about Islamophobia and whether the mosques in America are run by moderate Muslim populations or those with extremists view.

Let’s explore this Peter King issue a little bit further for the fun of it. To understand this issue, you must understand the Muslim demographics of America. For those of us living across the Atlantic, it is a very different story. Most Muslims living in Britain are those who newly immigrated here from the subcontinent, or those of second generation – and in all honesty, a lot of the 3rd and 4th generations have move on from Islam. In America though, you’ve got a very different story. In America, most Muslims are well educated and from a well-to-do family. They usually live in affluent part of town, and they fully embrace the American culture. I would imagine if you asked them where they came from, they will tell you they are American. Perhaps it’s the whole patriotism instilled in Americans from young – but they are part of the American life. Therefore, when someone like Peter King comes out to talk about those extremists living in the Muslim communities, suddenly a large population who in a way is ‘emancipated’ and ‘integrated’ into the American society suddenly got cherry-picked to be called a ‘terrorist’. To me, it resonates with what I read about Nazi Germany when the Jews were the scapegoat of the society.

I guess to a lot of people, religious people, whether they be Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus etc, are someone who are incompatible with modern society (c.f. the Hasidic Jews and the reform Jews). In a way, it’s the result of the slow secularisation of humanity – yes, that is the term I shall use. Ever since Nietzche declared God is dead in Gay Science, no matter how radical it was at the time, slowly anchors into society. You see, this is why I want to do Philosophy: ideologies affect people trough generations. Yet, people are seldom aware of the level of brainwashing going around. Leslie Hazelton mentioned the protocols of the elders of Zion, the Russian spy document, which I am sure I’ve mentioned before on my blog as well, is a great example of such floating ideology – which to my surprise (and dismay) the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt is passing out. The problem with ideologies are, once it becomes popularised, it becomes a ‘pseudo-truth’. I use the word pseudo because I think it’s only true to the beholder of the truth. I guess people can say the same for everything else that people believe. However, I do believe there is an ultimate truth which is shielded from the facade of our world – a reality beyond the understanding of human intellect and logic.

What I really wanted to say is that our mentality does not transcend history. I wasn’t sure who I was listening to – must be Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, my favourite Islamic scholar who teaches in Stanford and UC Berkeley – who said that his philosophy teacher was someone who had such entrenched view; It was impossible for someone to challenge his core principles because he thought so deeply about them. Yet, if we look at anyone in our society, we get so easily influenced by people around us, by a news article we read or by a magazine we follow that our views waffles – we don’t think about these issues. I find it very difficult to debate with people on political issues which I can’t verify with my own experience or some facts. I am quite a deep thinker. It’s been a while since I’ve really engage myself in thought – meditate I suppose. I remember when I did A-levels Philosophy, my head would be in constant state of ‘explosion’ – I guess it’s where they coined the phrase ‘mind-blowing’ because you really feel your mind blowing (up). I guess it’s time like that where you can truly connect with your soul and feel what is important to you.

I have quite deep entrenched views about a lot of things and I’m not someone who can easily change. Perhaps anti-semitism is one thing I have really thought about for a long time even coming face to face to it, that when I encounter it, I tend to feel nausea hearing it. At least with Islamophobia I can say, hey, I’m a Muslim who prays 5 times a day, I don’t think any rational person would imagine me extreme (you know what I mean ) by any measure. Then again, most of my non-Muslim friends would point to those ‘terrorists’ and say, they are not true Muslims.

I’ve been to so many places in the world, most people I’ve come across asks about Islam out of respect and curiosity instead of hostility. I do believe there is a general goodness in society, and I wish I could, insha’allah, understand more of the ‘reality’ which is so often clouded by our everyday lives.

I just did a search online and found this I would like to share:

There comes a time when you evaluate everything around you. I’ve been doing this lately. I don’t know if something had triggered it, but I suddenly know that perhaps I am unsure of anything around me. Sometimes you think you know something really well, and its funny how everything cripples down when you start looking at it from another angle; Like an optical illusion. I am having doubts in the deepest corner of my mind.

Only one thing lifts doubts: that is certainty. So I will only follow what I am certain of.

Its one of those days which makes me very nostalgic. Nostalgic about the past, nostalgic about the future. I remember watching American Beauty, driving home today I felt the feeling of this closing monologue:

I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. First of all, that one second isn’t a second at all, it stretches on forever, like an ocean of time. For me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout Camp, watching falling stars. And yellow leaves from the maple trees that lined our street. Or my grandmother’s hands, and the way her skin seemed like paper. And the first time I saw my cousin Tony’s brand new Firebird. And Janie, and Janie. And Carolyn. I guess I could be really pissed off about what happened to me, but it’s hard to stay mad when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain. And I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life. You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure. But don’t worry. You will someday.

I am here for a transient stay, this transience is what is getting to me I suppose. In search for something more permanent, I wonder what significance this transient existence hold?

I am begging the question of Godless Children. What do I mean? Lets see…When I look around, I see that believing in God has become out of fashion. People equate it to being superstitious, being old-fashioned, being un-scientific just to name a few. Many people would say “I believe in God” – some sort of ‘being’ out there who we can place our cosmological eventualities to, that somehow all answers can be cached to the existence of God.

The problem with our upbringing in this generation, post-2nd-world war, post 19th Century Enlightenment is we are ultimately brainwashed by residue ideas. Some of us might agree, some of us might totally disagree, but what used to be radical ideas such as Nietzche has become mainstream. In terms of human enlightenment, a society moving away from religious dependence is a sign of becoming more civilised. Examples such as banning of Burkha in France highlights the frowning we get when we bring religion into the public sphere. My friend said to me a few days ago, “your generation is the generation of Godless Children” [Paraphrased]. I pondered upon what he said, and I decided to type out something to try to prove or disprove his point.

Atheism is not a modern phenomenon. However, atheism as a mainstream religion is a modern phenomenon. This religion is called Hedonism: we human beings can and should derive the maximum satisfaction. Perhaps Hedonism has a negative connotation which is not totally called for. Whilst the generation before us care mostly about money, our generation care about satisfaction. I am aware that everything is relative (i.e. what I say or am about to say is not really applicable to Children in Africa who don’t have basic education), and given my immediate surrounding in the developed westernised world, money as an incentive is good for survival but perhaps we derive satisfaction from creativity and sharing this result. Let me give you an example, people develop softwares so that we can enjoy free services online. We can talk to our friends in the other side of the world instantly, information propagate in an unprecendented speed. People are willing to give up their time and effort for free. Time becomes unproportionally prolonged. Think of receiving a letter in the 50s from a friend abroad, it might take 2 weeks to get a respond, today, if it takes longer than 2 hours we complain. I can’t help but think because of this unproportional bending of psychological space-time coupled with enlightenment ideas, we are unable to see the reality of the world for what it is anymore. Today, I can log onto Google Streetview and see the street I grew up in in Hong Kong without standing up. Our distorted virtual world makes us believe we ourselves are gods who can create and destroy the world. Indeed, I love playing Simcity.

The opium of the masses is our LCD screens: the latest X-Factor news, the latest News from Afghanistan, the relationship status of our friends of facebook, the latest tweet of your friend living in Lima, not to mention the latest football score in the Premiership League. If Marx was right about one thing, it is that religion is the opium of the masses. The question is what do we worship? Movie stars? Founders of big tech companies such as Mark Zuckerberg and Shaun Parker not to mention Bill Gates? Money? You see, Karl Marx was referring to Christianity, whilst I have reservation about his whole theory, his observation in terms of religion as a form of addictive power is absolutely correct. When people believe in something so much, they are willing to kill for their ‘god’ – look at the fans for Westham football club, you can see the truth in it. The radicals amongst us would look at this behaviour and project logically that it is stupid to believe so deeply into something that they are willing to give up their lives for it. Yet, everyday we don’t fail to wake up at 8am to go to work, come home at 6pm because we know that on the 25th of each month, some digits will pop up on your LCD screen telling you that you are worth something in society and that because of your obedience to the system, you are rewarded with something called “purchasing power”.

You might read this blog post and think – hey its such an anti-religion post. I guess. Don’t fool ourselves, I am also a product of this western civilisation. I am from batch “class of 2003″ who was created by our great education “system” who then followed the system to go to university. I did everything I was told as a product of the industrial revolution. My grandmother used to work in a factory making clothes so that the westerners can go into a shop and pick up some random shirt without caring who made it.

I guess the question we need to ask ourselves are, beneath the surface of it all, the facade of our society, the ideas being propagated, what is the truth? Its all easy and nice to live in a bubble and believe that the bubble is all there is; Our accountability does not transcend our sensory and logic – that since we understand the mechanism in which things happen within this bubble we can deduce everything outside of it. There is only 1 thing which is certain in our life and that is death. In a world where we are constantly numbed from this fact (from video games, movies etc), we don’t really seek beyond the surface, and this includes ideas. If we can strip away everything: our looks, our senses, our ideas, our emotions – what is left? If you truly believe there is nothing left, we are really living a very sad existence and I can honestly see why we must live an Hedonistic life.

I’m sorry, I cannot perceive this world without ‘God’ – not as a person, not as an entity, not as an idea – but just ‘God’. Afterall its a label for something one cannot conceive. We can use metaphysics to explain it, we can come up with philosophy for it, but its a concept which is beyond us. Perhaps as Descartes begged the question – is ‘existence’ an attribute, i.e. A triangle has 3 sides (which is an attribute) but does a triangle need to exist for it to be a triangle? So, perhaps the discussion of existence of God is meaningless because there is only one truth, whether as an idea or as an entity, God exists and no matter how you try to define Him His existence is already assumed.

We are Godless Children because we just don’t want to think, or we don’t know what to think.

There was something else I wanted to blog about today. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking the last few days. Partly because after meeting up with Richard, my Czech friend, I have come to a newer understanding of what I want in life. A big part of me is telling myself that its rather stupid and another part is telling me its absolutely the right thing to do. So he just recently came back from Zimbabwe and his assessment of Africa was very similar to mine after I visited the countries around Zimbabwe a year or so back. Nonetheless, I do feel a great responsibility as a global citizen to do more to bridge the gap between the poor and the rich.

I don’t want to be an envelope of empty promises. Perhaps more so when I realised that I am torn by the gap between the life I aspire to be living and my moral compass in life. I feel that society on the whole is severely polarised. We are constantly bombarded with the concept of money. On the way driving Richard back to where he is staying in Chelsea Harbour, despite me winding him up with my Free-masons conspiracy theories, he told me he just wants to live; living life as it should be lived. In other words, not for the sake of earning money, not for the sake of status in society, but living life as it should be lived – not to worry about getting tickets to see a movie, not to worry about whether you have the latest fashion of handbag etc. I think this society, and I mean the western European society, worships money too much. This illusive attachment to status is haunting me. I remember walking down hyde park with Tim discussing with him about feeling crippled by the system and how great it feels to be rewarded by the system. This is the illusive reality of the world. We are in constant competition with one another, to be admitted into the best institutions, to feel like these things define you. More and more I am resisting this force for me to conform. I have conformed. Yet, more and more I feel the need to escape, to see the world away from the big bubble I am placed in. For me, there is an eternal truth out there and I feel the need to find it.

I have been listening to my favourite Islamic Scholar, Sheik Hamza Yusuf. I almost feel the need to apply to study in UC Berkeley because of this guy. Too bad I never did my SATs and subsequently GRE, and America has never been my top destination, but insha’Allah, I will get to meet him in person one day. However, I wonder how far I can go in search for truth. I feel that I will be disgarding my responsibility here as it would seem like an escape.

I wished our world was less polarised. The floatation of ideologies out there in conjuction with the number of nuclear warheads out there are a deadly cocktail in and of itself. Lets not forget the ‘Acts of God’ who will follow as a result of our inconsideration for the planet we live in, i.e. global warming etc. Although the Tsunami in 2004 could not be described as a direct consequence of our actions, looking through some of those footage reminds me that life is fragile and it can be gone without warning. We mankind live such heedless life that we think we are above life itself.

I need a way out…I feel so trapped. The thing is, the more I look at things which is remotely connected to what I do, it makes me shiver in disgust =S This is really not a great sign. I wished I had good councel when I was younger. I wished I had followed my heart and not my mind. Now I am trapped within my own misery and I need out. Perhaps its for my own good. Just gotta remember it couldn’t have happened any other way…

Perhaps this will be a very strange blogpost, but I am trying to figure something out in my head these few days. Something is frustrating me, and I can’t put my fingers to what it is. We are all placed into this 4-dimensional world: we relate to people, objects, events through the constraints of the 3-dimensional space, and 1-dimensional time. Without these entities, memories would be meaningless, life might become blurry. I often sit and ponder about the amazing fact of my existence. Irregardless of any religious inclination, shouldn’t we puzzle as to why we are in this world? Most people consider me an idealist, some complain I am not practical in the way I think. Perhaps. However, we have a choice between accepting the way in which the world function or live our lives according to how we want to live it. Recently I got a cup which has this Edward Monkton’s print on it:

The quote at the back is: “Beware of the deadly donkey falling slowly from the sky. You can CHOOSE the way you LIVE, my friend but not the way you DIE.” Here we are, living our lives as we do without much seeming purpose. Most people say we are so small - if you look at our universe, the earth is so minute, and we are just 1 of <population of earth> people living amongst the billions and trillions of other orgnaisms who share this planet who coexist in a you give I take relationship. For example, a whale shark eating planktons:

Such a giant animal living on such small creatures. So - what is our purpose? I am not satisfied knowing that there is no reason or explanation for my existence. Therefore, I have decided to be ‘good’. Yet, concepts such as good and bad are such difficult concept to grasp. I was asked a question today on google chat, “Do you think its possible for us to make decisions to do good without God.” -> The question is, what is good? Ok, some would argue that if your action benefits many people, a utilitarianistic ideology, you are doing good. However, then we have to define what is beneficial. Take for example, China, a generation of people are lifted from poverty because of economic reform by the government. That is beneficial right? However, does being lifted from poverty entails goodness? Perhaps on an economical point view, yes. But how have they really benefited in terms of their purpose in life? Surely, in a capitalistic society, our worth as human beings is defined by our monetary value, as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said in the little prince. Ok here is the little prince so you can imagine him speaking to you:

When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, “What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?” Instead, they demand: “How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?” Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him.

If you were to say to the grown-ups: “I saw a beautiful house made of rosy brick, with geraniums in the windows and doves on the roof,” they would not be able to get any idea of that house at all. You would have to say to them: “I saw a house that cost $20,000.” Then they would exclaim: “Oh, what a pretty house that is!”

When you tell people, “I got a payrise”, people will say, “Oh thats good!” but if you tell people “I lost my job”, people would automatically assume it to be a bad thing. I’m not talking merely other people, even yourself might consider that “bad”or “good” - such labels are very deceptive. It seems to me how good something is depends largely on how the society sees your existence. The thing with human beings is we are social animal. Even if you are INTJ -> the introvert, thinking type who doesn’t want people to disturb you, eventually you have to allow other people into your life. Ultimately, the way they see you affects the way you see yourself, and in turns you judge the world accordingly. Its said in the Quran (2:216) “Fighting has been made obligatory for you, much to your dislike. It is quite possible that something which you don’t like is good for you and that something which you love is bad for you. Allah knows, and you do not.” Don’t adopt a Wilder-ist mentality when reading this quote - fighting can mean an internal struggle -> for instance fighting an addiction of smoking or drinking. Either way, what if you are unable to tell if the thing you love/hate is good or bad?

Back to the title of this blog. The linearity of life. We live life in a rather linear way because that is the way we see it. We are born then we grow slightly, then grow a lot, then grow in places you don’t want to grow, then we get old, then we get older, then we think back to the days when we were still growing. The point I am making is, we are confined by the linearity of time. We can’t decide to live an old age tomorrow with your kids looking after you, or you can’t live the free and carefree life of a bachelor after you are married and at the age of 80. The fact that we don’t know what will happen is so mind-boggling. However, imagine a world where time does not exist, that there was no linearity, and that the reason for doing something is not related to some particular event. This is when the causal effect breaks down, and the way in which define good and bad would become irrelevant. We are dead already. I know I have to be more patient, because we are placed in a linear time scale, and we are placed in a constraint in which our happiness depend on the events which take place in this 4 dimensional space-time. Perhaps if we could free our minds, and accept that our purpose will be fulfilled we might be much happier.

If I had a choice of when I am to be born I would have chosen the 60s in Hong Kong. I guess its the golden age of the city and opportunities arises which nowadays we, those who are born in the late 80s, early 90s often felt left behind. I guess my criticisms come from all dimensions. One obvious thing to look at is the economic crisis we’re in. Those of us trying to find jobs are left hanging high and dry. Well, I’m one of the lucky ones, very lucky when I think about it.

My friend/colleauge said to me: The graduates nowadays are so 1-dimensional. Well, I suppose I’m not 1-d as such but the way in which I was brought up and raised I’m given only 1 route to take, and everyone takes that same route: School -> Uni -> Work -> Get married -> Retirement. Safe route I suppose. The more I think about it, the more I am upset we’re being moulded by society’s definition of success.

My uncle sent me this blog: http://hk.myblog.yahoo.com/ekwleung/ I absolutely enjoy this blog. I don’t usually read many blogs which is not written by my freinds. However, I feel a great sense of nostalgia. People find it very strange that I am nostalgic over photographs of Hong Kong taken over 40-50 years ago, an era I have never experienced. However, its always an era I so looked forward to living in. People dressed differently, the routemasters roamed the streets of colonial buildings, foreigners spoke in Cantonese. When I was young, I collected models of buses. My favorite of them were the routemasters and those single decker non-airconditioned buses which they took off the roads when I was 9 or 10 years old. To see it in action on photographs and movies just reminded me of the fact I was born in the wrong era. That was also another reason why I looked forward to going to London when I was younger - the view of routemasters roaming down knightsbridge allow me to imagine what it must be like being 20 in the 80s. Of course there isn’t much left other than bus 9 and bus 15 acting as the heritage route for tourists to feel what its like to have a conductor selling tickets. I am glad though I manage to make it here before the last of bus 14 stopped their services which served me well between China Town and Evelyn Gardens.

Sometimes I think what it is that makes us happy, and sometimes I think about the images of the past. I remember the day when I was like 6 or 7 and there was a bus with a dryers ice-cream advertisement, and I begged my grandma to take me on. Those were the good times - when grandma and I would take the KCR (when it was still those yellow and grey trains) to Hung Hom and catch the star ferry to meet my dad in time for him to get off work in the island. Then he would drive us back using the car ferries run by Yau Ma Tei Ferry company which of course stopped running. Hong Kong is a fast changing place. Everytime I go back, something changes. The truth is, I get very saddened by it. Going back to where you grow up and see that everything is no longer the way it used to be. Even those days when Jackie and I used to hike Lantau Islands back in year 9 or 10. Now, they have flipping cable cars and a disneyland. I guess Hong Kong people just move on, those living in the city just see their homeland pass them by. Sometimes I look at old people who sit in the park, I wonder what it is that they remember, and how they must think how different today’s Hong Kong is.

I don’t really like to go back to Hong Kong now, contrary to what people might think. I cannot relate to the society anymore. As proud as I am to say I am from Hong Kong, I can’t really say I know the place anymore. The culture has changed so much. Mainland Chinese moving to Hong Kong, claiming that Hong Kong, which is rightfully China, should be considered Chinese. The fact is, Hong Kong was built up by the British with the contribution of Chinese and Indians (and Napalese) who would call themselves 香港人. However, its now politically incorrect to call yourself 香港人 (without attributing that phrase to equating 中国人), especially outside Hong Kong. Chinese would feel uneasy about it, they would say to you, well, are you saying Hong Kong is independent? Hong Kong IS part of China now. However, I don’t feel very Chinese (nor Pakistani for argument sake)! I have my very own identity and that is purely I’m from Hong Kong, and perhaps a Hong Kong I no longer recognise.

Sometimes I wished I was old enough to remember Margret Thatcher fall off the steps in China or lives under the governor which the Mclehose Trail or Wilson Trail was named after. I guess in a world where the Americans are bowing down to the Chinese, I am not that pro-Chinese. I do feel like a generation’s thinking has been changed by the on-going brainwashing of the Chinese Anthem, and a strong Chinese identity. Perhaps that is what Hong Kong needs for the future, we have to recognise that Hong Kong is part of China. However, a person cannot forget where he/she came and to do that one must understand their history. So, I’m really glad that Mr Leung has decided to keep a blog about the heritage.

I was really worked up about this apparent cultural white-wash of Hong Kong’s heritage (which in my opinion apart from the Chinese, also includes the British, the Indians and even the Jewish community (the Penninsula group, Kadoorie Farm)) but I guess no one in this politically polarised world wants to acknowledge that.

Sometimes I would sit in a chinese restaurants in London looking over my shoulders to a bunch of ‘foreigners’ who may be English or Indian, and I would think to myself, a bunch of foreigners who knows nothing about China having Chinese food. Then when they start to speak to each other in Cantonese I would find myself in shame of ignorance and stereotype. Then I remind myself: perhaps this is the destination for the true 香港人 (including myself) - the diaspora who will never belong in their own land.

I told my uncle how this blog makes me feel somewhat saddened by the loss of culture in HK with the increasing number of influx of people from Mainland China. My uncle wisely told me, “When I see this blog, I know that everything would be changed, nothing is forever.”

I’m of the view that whilst it is a loss for those around the deceased, what we can do for the deceased does not lie in what we think the deceased would have liked if he/she was still alive, but rather to facilitate the deceased in his/her journey into the afterlife. That to have the deceased facilitate the timetable, convenience and emotional need of the bereaving is somewhat wrong. We will ultimately follow this path of death in the end, would it not be better if we are to be assisted to moving into the new life rather than being pulled back from what is to come?

Said Ka’b [al-Ahbar], ‘When the righteous bondsman is laid in his tomb he is suurounded by his righteous acts, such as his prayer, his fasting, his pilgrimage, his engagement in the Holy War, and the charity he used to distribute. Then the Angels of Chastisement approach him from the direction of his feet, but are told by Prayer, “Get back from him, you have no authority over him, for upon those [feet] he stood in me at length for the sake of God”. Then they approach him from the direction of his head, but Fasting says, “You have no authority over him, for in the world’s abode he thirsted at length for the sake of God”. Next they draw near to him from the direction of his trunk, but Pilgrimage and Holy War say, “Get back from him for he exhausted himself and wearied his body when he accomplished the Pilgrimage and the Holy War for the sake of God; no authority do you have over him”. Then they approach him from the direction of his hands, but Charity says, “Back! Retreat from my master, for how many an act of charity issued from those two hands to fall in to the hand of God (Exalted is He!), while he acted only for His sake; no authority, do you have over him”. Then he shall be told, “Rejoice! Good you have been in life and in death!” Next, the Angels of Mercy come, and spread a heavenly cloth and resting-place out for him, and his grave is widened around him for as far as the eye can see. A candle is brought from Heaven, and from it he has light until God resurrects him from his grave.’

Al-Ghazali : The Remembrance of Death and the Afterlife

The unwritten contract of erotic friendship stipulated that Tomas should exclude all love from his life. The moment he violated that clause of the contract, the other mistresses would assume inferior status and become ripe for insurrection.

Accordingly, he rented a room for Tereza and her heavy suitcase. He wanted to be able to watch over her, protect her, enjoy her presence, but felt no need to change his way of life. He did not want word to get out that Tereza was sleeping at his place: spending the night together was the corpus deliciti of love.

Milan Kundera: The unbearable lightness of being

If there were no eternal consequences for our actions and intentions, then what is stopping us from living a life where we are free to do what we want? Of course I don’t believe in the non-existence of an eternal consequential state. But when men has desires beyond their realm they are capable of doing stupid things. I guess God made men and women opposites so that they could attract, but the responsibility which He places upon those attraction can be the heaviest burden of all. If men were created without any free will that is we are the product of divine predestination, then whatever I intend to do will have no weight on the eternal consequence because the eternal consequence is already preordained. Then why is it that we feel the lightness of being when we take away responsibility from the equation? Does lightness always equate happiness?

Suddenly felt the urge to blog about innocence. I wonder if we can all be forgiven for all we are incapable of achieving. But then again, do we all have the ability to change? Perhaps we can’t be perfect, because there are too much I have seen which is not perfect. Why are we such defected beings? Is morality overrated in today’s society?

This is a big word. But behind it - I want to know what it is that is driving us to possess ‘hope’. I started this blog post a few days ago, probably a week now. Within this week, I have already talked to a few people about “hope”. As exams are coming up, people’s health are at stake, I have come to question this supposedly huge metal capability of “hope”. What does it means to “hope”?

I am not trying to be philosophical or anything. Its just that lately hope and luck are words which seems a little meaningless to me. What does it mean when a person wishes you “good luck” for your exams? or what does it mean when someone hopes that another person gets better? Ultimately, we believe that there is a mysterious, supernatural force out there which puts together all the law of physics which in our mind we are able to bend. People pray for something they want. But how often do they get it? Are we being over-optimistic to believe that there would be some divine intervention which will help bend the future towards your desires?

Sure, optimism and hope comes together. We have to be optimistic so that psychologically if something bad happens, we are ultimately prepared to take that consequence. But what if its something beyond our comprehension?

Imagine a child in Darfur running away from militias everyday. In his mind, he hopes that tomorrow would be a better day, that it would be just like the days when he remember cooking in his minimal hut for his brothers and sisters who have AIDs. See, the big picture is that if one day the international community can finally pressure China to stop supporting Sudan and perhaps that kid would have a chance of his hope realising. But what is the sole agent that is trying to link his hope with China’s cease of support for Sudan? If action is the agent, there must still be a platform for such a hope to be realised.

We often want to believe that by our mind, we can change the reality. But more often than not, we are conditioning our minds to cope with the reality. I am still intrigued by this notion of “hope”. I hope that I will do well in my exams tomorrow - I can only do my part in revising for it, but that is how far hope can take me. Sometimes we just have to accept that things are not in our hands and there is nothing we can do - even hope.

Gosh…this is such an anti-religious post. Its just a thought exercise.

Intense, unexpected suffering passes more quickly than suffering that is apparently bearable; the latter goes on for years and, without our noticing, eats away at our soul, until, one day, we are no longer able to free ourselves from the bitterness and it stays with us for the rest of our lives.
~ Introduction of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

I met an old friend of mine, probably one of my oldest friends from early primary school. He told me I must read this book. Now going into pupillage, Lester told me to follow my dreams. Everyone back in Hong Kong is either practicing Law or Architecture. Those who I knew was doing Engineering had either dropped out or turned to the dark side, aka i-banking. Those of us sitting around that table doing A-level Religious Studies had all gone our way, and for those who had made the choice of turning to science, I think for me anyway, feel that there is something missing in my life.

I believe that we all take roads for a reason. I have come here for a reason. What I am proud of is the fact that I am about to finish this road. It had led me to a world where dreams were fulfilled (going to Japan), led me to leave behind my footprint (ICMUN) and finally fulfilling this challenge (graduating from EE in Imperial). Yet, I don’t seem to be satisfied. I am wondering whether I, like Coehlo said in this little part of his introduction to this book, have become bitter? I believe there is a strong bitterness within myself. Have I lost my soul?

Cedric kept asking me whether I enjoyed my time in Hong Kong, and yet I was unable to answer him. Last time talking to Livia online, I have come to realised that I am lost - perhaps lost for a general direction. Tomorrow, as I am going to board my plane back to the UK, all I can say about this 2 weeks of staying in Hong Kong is that I am more lost for what I want. Back in UK, for the next 2 months anyway, there is only one thing in my mind: Graduation.

Am I amplifying my existence? But I believe that God has given me a skill - and that skill is to be able to think. I have been born a thinker, and yet right now I am stuck in a world where I am trained to be a robot. But I guess Oscar Wilde is right in saying that “each man kills the thing he loves.” For me, I have killed my love of knowledge - afterall isn’t that what philosopher is?

I hope I haven’t depressed you with this post. I am merely fighting in my head. Tomorrow will be a better day.