Stifled Words Tuesday, Feb 9 2010

For many days now, I’ve had numerous ideas for interesting blog posts.

But somehow, whenever I begin writing, my hand just feels tight.

Tight, unable to unleash the words that I have somewhere inside me.

I guess this blog post is meant to just allow my words to start flowing again, and then perhaps I will be able to come up with a good piece of writing.

I realize that I really do like some of my posts, but the problem with that is that I start expecting all my posts to be like that.

But of course, that’s not really possible.

Words get stifled, and stuck.

They currently are, actually.

I guess there’re a lot of things I want to say, that I want to express, but somehow it feels that they’ll merely be empty words.

Empty words that would serve no other purpose than that of being said, and heard.

Perhaps, these empty words are an indication that I actually do not have anything new to say.

That what I thought about while I was away was actually rather futile.

Things still are the same, and life rumbles on.

I guess one reason I miss school is the constant fighting.

I sometimes feel the fight draining out of me.

Ah, random thoughts that might have a resemblance to the stifled words inside of me.

Guess I’ll have to leave writing a better post to another day.

Leave a Response »

 

Retarded Quote Tuesday, Jan 12 2010

“Glee club is supposed to be about what’s inside your heart, not what’s coursing through your veins.”

Hello? That’s just blood, isn’t it?

Hahaha. You know I can just get by some cheesy lines but some just pop in their inanity.

But don’t get the wrong impression. I’m enjoying watching Glee. The music’s really really great. Haha, just a little indulgence before flying off to Thailand.

Leave a Response »

 

gg Sunday, Jan 10 2010

I sense your presence, moving towards
Me. Armed to the teeth, battle ready.
I reach for you. You deny me.

You tear down my defenses, each and every
One. All my lanes are open, vulnerable and assailable.
You swoop in, dominating.

You are there when I die, there when I
Revive. Right there so close, yet so elusive.
I concede, I admit defeat, I surrender.

gg

Leave a Response »

 

Reading Great Writing Sunday, Jan 10 2010

Well, I’ve been having quite a hard time deciding what to write for the first post of 2010.

Candidates included some reflections about 2009, or perhaps a forward looking “hopes for 2010″ post.

But so far, inspiration for blog posts have come in at mostly one-liners.

But after reading two, commentaries on the movie Avatar, I just had to post the links up here on my blog.

Please do read the second link. It’s absolutely well written. My favorite part:

The question is whether Nature actually deserves a religious response. Traditional theism has to wrestle with the problem of evil: if God is good, why does he allow suffering and death? But Nature is suffering and death. Its harmonies require violence. Its “circle of life” is really a cycle of mortality. And the human societies that hew closest to the natural order aren’t the shining Edens of James Cameron’s fond imaginings. They’re places where existence tends to be nasty, brutish and short.

Religion exists, in part, precisely because humans aren’t at home amid these cruel rhythms. We stand half inside the natural world and half outside it. We’re beasts with self-consciousness, predators with ethics, mortal creatures who yearn for immortality.

This is an agonized position, and if there’s no escape upward — or no God to take on flesh and come among us, as the Christmas story has it — a deeply tragic one.

Pantheism offers a different sort of solution: a downward exit, an abandonment of our tragic self-consciousness, a re-merger with the natural world our ancestors half-escaped millennia ago.

But except as dust and ashes, Nature cannot take us back.

Brilliant.

Indeed, the mindless worship of nature has always struck me as a form of crazy. I roll my eyes at things like PETA, which I agree should be renamed to “People for Eating Tasty Animals”. Hahaha. Great line from Did You Hear About the Morgans.

So yeah, as you probably can garner from this post, I’ve finally caught up with movie watching. Now, what I mean by that is that when asked “any movies you wanna catch?”, if my answer only consists of one or fewer movies, then I’ve caught up with the cinema. Haha.

But this post is about reading great writing because I’m going back to book reading, in anticipation of the days in Thailand within the said sorry wombs of Mother Nature.

Think I’m gonna have to go book shopping soon. Terry Pratchett is brilliant. Currently reading Going Postal and will probably buy a couple more of his books to bring along to Thailand.

So, guess this is quite a simple post for a first post of 2010. Guess my reflections for 2009 will have to wait for another day.

Leave a Response »

 

The Right to My Money Friday, Dec 18 2009

I guess I’ve wanted to blog about this since a few weeks ago, when I met up with the debaters.

But couldn’t really think of a good way to present the thoughts that I wanted to convey.

So, I’ve decided to just go with the flow and see what happens.

Well, the starting point here is that there are those who believe that people have a right to a minimum standard of living, and thus it is the duty of the government to provide it for them.

I personally used to think like that too. But increasingly, I’m finding such a position logically questionable, even when I accept as a given the existence of such entities as “rights”.

The immediate corollary to the idea that people have a right to a minimum standard of living is the idea that those same people have a right to other people’s money.After all, that money has to come from other people, some where.

To me, that’s just a no.

Regardless of how poor you are, how pathetic, how pitiful you are, you do not have the right to the fruits of other people’s labour. You may request for it, and people may give it to you at their discretion. But call it charity. Not justice.

Okay, I grant that if someone stole from you, you have the right to take it back. But I mean stole in a literal way.

Now, some might argue that it is the duty of the rich to give back. But who is giving back to whom? People earn money by providing something for others. That something (be it a good or service) is already the giving back. No one external to that transaction has any right to any part of it.

But even if I feel a moral compulsion to help people, why should the government hold a gun to my head and tell me who to help?

That’s precisely what happens when the government taxes me and uses my money (without my consent) to help whatever disenfranchised groups in society it sees fit.

Personally, I cannot see why it is more righteous to help someone within a geo-political boundary than someone out of it.

Geographical proximity has no bearing on whether a person is deserving of our help. I’d much rather help an honest, enterprising African than a whining Singaporean bum.

I guess the bottom line here is that my money is mine and no one has the right to it except me.

And that includes the elderly, the disabled, the orphans, or whatever other disenfranchised group you have in mind.

There, I’ve bitten the bullet and now you can start calling me names.

Except that I suspect most people secretly believe as I do.

If you think that the poor has a right to a better standard of living, you better be doing something fairly major about it rather than just talking about it.

Like I said in my previous post, talk is cheap.

I suspect most people just like signaling that they have a compassionate heart or something like that. Possibly some kind of evolutionary impulse to get a mate. Either that, or their idea of a right is just really cheap and has no moral force whatsoever.

Me? I am honestly self centred. I don’t pretend to care about people I don’t really care about.

The truth is that most people don’t care. They just like to pretend that they do.

2 Responses »

 

Reasons Sunday, Dec 6 2009

Actions result from choices, which result from a comparison of preferences, which result from a system of values and beliefs.

Or, perhaps, actions result from instinct, pure, undeliberated, instinct. An immediate gut feeling that points in a direction that is unquestioningly accepted.

But even in the second scenario, actions are results, consequences, and thus, have a reason.

One could point at the immediate cause, a specific electrical impulse of the brain, a specific chemical reaction.

Or one could point at the strange psychology that make up our minds. Both the conscious and the subconscious.

But actions have reasons. Behaviors do not arise randomly.

We may not be aware of these reasons. And non-random does not necessarily imply a discernable pattern.

But the ability to sieve through collected data of actions and derive a hypothesis which is then tested.

That is the science of mind reading.

Talk is cheap.

Action is a much surer window into the mind because actions are costly.

They cost time, effort, resources.

And thus, actions reveal preferences much more than mere talk.

For what reason do I take action? For what reason do I live my life.

If you think your life is not worth living, sign the donor card and kill yourself.

For me, I have long valued knowing the reasons for which I do things.

As I’ve said, one always does things for a reason. The question is whether you know what your reasons are.

Some people are satisfied with not knowing.

To them, they are so complex that even they cannot begin to fathom themselves.

They wonder why they do things. They wonder why they feel the way they do.

And they wear their professed ignorance as a badge on their sleeves.

I can only guess at the true meaning behind other people’s actions.

And I can only ever know my own reasons for doing things.

I only have access to me.

And that makes me want to make sure I make full use of it.

If I cannot even know myself, the most easily accessible subject of inquiry, then why bother with the rest of it.

Thankfully, I think I do.

I know why I do things. I know why I live.

I know what makes me happy. I know who makes me happy.

However much I might complain about certain things, talk is cheap.

Actions, on the other hand, are costly.

To act is to commit. To invest.

I commit and I invest.

And I know why.

One Response »

 

Letter to TODAY: Can people refuse a job offer? Tuesday, Nov 10 2009

Just sent in a letter to TODAY newspaper.

Dear Sir/Mdm,

I refer to the question Mr Eric Sng asked in his letter, “Can cabbies refuse customers?”. Regardless of the authorities’ position, I believe the answer is obvious if we ask a  more general question: Can people refuse a job offer?

A taxi driver offers a service for a price. In certain cases, the metered fare the cabby expects to receive is simply not enough to justify his perceived opportunity costs. Perhaps he is rushing home to see his children before bedtime, or perhaps he wants to maximize his earnings to better provide for his family. In any case, the cabby has judged that it is not in his interest to offer his services. Who are we to force him to do so?

When we go to the market, do we expect the meat seller to sell us his wares at a price lower than his costs? Do we expect our contractors to work at a loss?

While I sympathize with Mr Sng’s difficulty in getting a cab that night, the solution would be to offer additional payment to the driver, or to make a booking instead.  Alternatively, he could wait for a taxi driver who decides that the benefits of the job outweigh its costs and voluntarily accepts it as a mutually advantageous exchange.

Yours Sincerely,
Daryl Yong

Of course I’m hoping that they’ll publish it. I think there’s a chance: It’s far less controversial than my last letter and they published that.

While it may seem like a trivial issue, I certainly don’t think so. The issue is really about whether we have a right to our own bodies: whether we have the autonomy to decide where to invest our labour. And it is this right that is so powerfully and disgustingly violated by National Service Slavery. But that, I think, deserves a post of its own.

UPDATE: My letter was published in full in the Nov 12 issue. How fun, haha.

2 Responses »

 

Terminated! Tuesday, Nov 3 2009

One Response »

 

Hardcore Badass Chiongster Sunday, Nov 1 2009

Since I’ve had a fair bit of time on my hands for these few days, I’ve had the time to think a little about my life so far, as well as do a little reading plus catch up on Grey’s Anatomy.

And really, Grey’s makes being a hardcore badass absolutely cool.

To be dedicated, have a clear purpose, and succeed.

If Nature had a shape, it would be a circle. The circle of life, the water cycle, the nitrogen cycle, it goes on and on.

We have also always liked the idea of circles. From the ancient Greeks for whom the Circle was holy, to Buddhists who believe in reincarnation, the Circle is seen as a perfect shape.

But perhaps Man is  better represented by a  line.

A clear starting point, a direction, and an end. Roads, skycrappers, cables.

Pretty good metaphor from Rand, in my opinion.

To be a hardcore badass chiongster is to draw your own line, and extend it as far as possible within our finite lifetimes.

Haha, I just realized how I have somehow managed to internalize and use a word that I’ve only heard used in the army.

Anyway, with uni tantalizingly far away, all I can do when I hear about the girls talk about uni is to swear to myself that I’m gonna be a hardcore badass during uni and chiong all the way.

Haha.

Of course, talking is really easy, since it’s so far away.

Looking at my past records, I wouldn’t really consider myself as someone who can really chase a goal with a long, sustained, dedicated burst of energy.

I mean, looking at people like Yi Ci study and work their asses off is inspiring, but something I’ve never been able to do despite fantasizing of it numerous times.

I guess my natural state is one where I am relaxed and kinda slacking.

But I can totally imagine loving Law School and having actual fun when studying, just as I used to in IP.

I mean, JC was fun but it wasn’t fun mugging for the A Levels.

Argh, I am still more than a year away from that life.

So how’s that for an advanced New Year’s Resolution for the year 2011? To be a hardcore badass chiongster in uni. Hahaha.

Leave a Response »

 

What Religion? Sunday, Nov 1 2009

Leave a Response »