A Friendship But Not A Relationship

So it's been over a month since my last blog post and school has already started for a week, it's currently in its second week now and quickly, work is seemingly already piled high ahead of me, I can only hope I can achieve a 4.0 GPA to bring it up but I highly doubt I can hit that. But that's not the topic of what I have to say today. It's on an entirely different spectrum.

For most people, they have a few friends of the opposite gender. Sometimes more than their own, which is perfectly fine. I don't have many friends who are girls, I can probably count it on one hand if I had to, which then again, I don't have many friends either. Most other people I know I'd only count as acquaintances. To me, the word 'friend' just has so much more meaning and power than to others. Some people only have to meet a person once or twice before deciding they're their friends (supposing they like them). For me, it's more like twenty. Minor digression, back to the point I was going to say, so sometimes, there's this friend of the opposite gender you really hit it off with. It's at the point where you have so many things you can talk about, movies, games, anything really. All your mutual friends are speculating if you're together, you hear them and laugh it off but then you doubt yourself for a moment. What if you really like them? Would you miss out if you don't act? Could he/she be the soulmate you were destined for?

And so you acted, or it could be that the other other party acted first. You end up together. Happiest 3 months of your life. Maybe rest of your life. And then strife. National Service, taxing classes, work stresses. Argument. Life so turbulent. You question if really you were meant for each other. Increasingly, you notice the things you never saw before, say words of war. At the same time, so does he/she. Tensions rise and they drop their guise. Suddenly you realise that you're not meant to be. Words you didn't intend, an unwanted end.  After 3 weeks, you run into them. It was fleet, your eyes meet. Pleas quietly said, no mends to be made, heart cut by a blade. You drink your mead, try to stop the bleed. Passage of a melancholy tide, tears have dried.

So before I get too carried away with the rhymes (actually it's just that it's gotten too hard), the crux of what I've been trying to say is that just because you have a great friendship doesn't mean that you'll have a great relationship. There's always things that you will never show your friends, likewise so will the other party. Things you'll expect of a significant other but not a friend. I've personally seen this in my own relationships (only in one actually but still) and that from people around me. Somehow, even when they're in the wrong (I'm talking for objective issues like if the sun is a star), they want the other party to cede to them, but they might simply accept that they were wrong and not fight over it if it was a friend instead who told them they were wrong. This is just one example of the things that could be expected from a significant other that won't be expected from a friend. Somehow, just because they're together, it is expected that the significant other should be treated differently, like royalty. And honestly, I don't think that's a viable relationship. You got together at first because you enjoyed each other's company. Then when unrealistic or sudden expectations are placed on the other party, suddenly your company ceases to be as desirable to the other party. You show things you wouldn't show your friends but would show your family. They see that you're not all that you're cropped up to be, likewise so will you, and well, things don't end well.

So don't be overly hasty. Sometimes, all that you'll ever be meant for is just a friendship but of course, that doesn't mean you can never be more than that.

Spirituality Without Religion

This post was sparked by this here video, so go on ahead to check it out.

To those that know me on a level greater than an acquaintance, you might perhaps know that I am a staunch Atheist. Not so long ago, maybe 4 or 5 years ago, I'd decided that I was an Atheist. I've known pretty much all my life that idols of the Buddhas in the temples I visit occasionally don't really have any sort of effect on me. I've never set foot in a church and I don't think I ever will, but I've never really felt Jesus or God in my life. I believed in one thing - nothing happens without a reason, everything has an explanation backed by evidence. That's my philosophy on religion, which so far has no evidence for existence of a God, but granted there's no evidence proving there isn't one either, though so far everything religion has said about the creation of the world has proven to be less than true. I mean come on, it's a really far-fetched story that the world was created in 6 days, with God resting on the last. It sounds just like a week, work for 6 days and rest/church on Sunday.

Just a couple years ago I'd straight up tell you that religion is a terrible thing and that anyone who believes in a God is a fool to cast aside the teachings of Science and choose instead to believe in old books and the words of our ancestors who didn't know better. Nowadays, I recognise that that's the way that some people choose to see the world and it's damn near impossible to change it. After all, it's not easy to let go of something you've been taught your entire childhood for something that a stranger or a friend told you when your whole family believes it. Your whole family can't be wrong right? And anyway, I realise that not all religious people are a terrible lot and just because I can't see the good of it doesn't mean they can't. Science speaks to me like Jesus or God speaks to them. And religion does answer some of the hard questions like where we go after we die and how life came to be born on Earth (though this is beginning to be more clear to us everyday).

My take on religion is that it was a way of living that worked for almost 2 millenium. There's no better way to teach an uneducated person how to live than with a omnipotent being that's ever watchful of your every move and would punish you for straying away from the "righteous path" and doing bad deeds or not believing in him. It was also a means of explaining complex events that have no clear and obvious reason. Like why is there a waterspout, a whirlpool or a tsunami? As the ancient Chinese would tell you, that's the dragons of the East Palace wreaking havoc because they were angry over something. Why has plague suddenly struck us out of nowhere? God's wrath for humanity's sins. Mythical beings are a very easy way of avoiding having to dig deeper for the truth, pinning everything to God's(or mythical beings') will. And if you think that's hokey, if your 2 year old child asks you why there's rainbows, is it easier to tell him it was made by God or to explain to him that a rainbow is a result of the refraction of light through water vapour in Earth's atmosphere? 

Now just think, if you didn't know why something happened and someone asked you for an explanation, wouldn't just be easier to say it was the work of God than to try to find an answer for it? After all you've got better things to do like work the fields and make sure the raiders aren't coming to abduct your women again. Much of the Bible contains passages about things that are forbidden and what's allowed, like not wearing clothes woven from 2 materials, not eating molluscs and shellfish or not eating pigs in the Qur'an and Torah. With good reason too, the octopus/sea slug could be poisonous, there's no way of knowing for sure and pigs often have tapeworms that could pass to humans if not cooked well. And there were other passages about things like selling your daughters to other men for wives and what not. Such a thing today would be unthinkable but not in those days. And not to mention there was incest between Lot and his daughters (instigated by them no less) because he has no male heir. Not all of religion is about outdated methods of living though, God does provide a sort of comfort to some people and that's not bad.

But there's a common misconception that a person who doesn't believe in God is on the wrong path and that unless you're on the same road as them (by that I mean the same denomination of religion as them), you're definitely on the road to Hell and our dear friend Stan. Yes, Stan. (Alright, alright, Satan.) Oftentimes I see this from Christians and being said to other Christians and people of the book. Like come on, you guys have the same God, can't you guys be nice to each other? Not too long ago, I saw an article written by a female Australian journalist about why she converted from Christianity to Islam and while most of the commentators were supportive of her change, the ones that stand out are Christians telling her that "She is not born again, I will pray for you and hope you find the way back to God." What the fuck? Fuck your prayers, she found her God. You can keep your God and your shitty mindset to yourself. Why couldn't they be happy for her? Why does it have to be either you're with us or you're on your way to hell. It's so freaking archaic and reminds me of the iron age. And it's always the christians like them that foul the image of all Christians and also the reason why I ended up being an Atheist. Constantly asking you to go to church with them and telling you quotes from the Bible like it's some fucking gem of a quote. Hell naw it ain't. They say nothing but "Believe in me because I'm the best and the most amazing." Literally the whole aim of the Bible is about asking you to believe in God if you just take a step back and look at it.

And these people often think that because we don't have a God, we aren't spiritual and we can't appreciate beautiful things because we don't know that it was made by God for us. Well my answer to them is that we can. We can appreciate the stars because we know what powers them, the forces that create them, how they shine, their births, their lives and their deaths, some go quietly into the night, others in a blaze of glory. When we look at the birds flying in the sky, we appreciate that they can do that because of the glorious evolution of their feathers from quills and breast muscles to power their flight. When I walk outside and look at the trees, the grass, the cat, the lizard, the bird and the fish, I can appreciate that we are all related to each other, that at one point in time we were not so different from one another and that we all share the same origin. That all matter in the universe is but a tiny fraction of that which existed at the very beginning of time and it's because of that tiny amount more matter than anti-matter that the universe came to exist as we know it. That the dirt, the water, the air, every living creature is made from stardust. From the Earth that gives us life we return to it in the great cycle. The root of the word Science is Scientia, Latin for knowledge. And indeed it is to know, to possess knowledge through Science from which my spirituality comes. Through Science, it is discovered that all life is connected to one another, we are all related and that is exceedingly beautiful. To me, it is far more beautiful to know that it was through the smallest of chances that we came to exist and are all connected than that we were created by a perfect being as separate creatures.

But I'm not saying that religious people are bad people, no. Not all of them. Many of the religious ones I know are good people. It is just that they see the world through a different lens to try and understand it in their way. By no means are they bad because they don't see the world through the same lens as us. I guess my message here is that no matter what we believe in, we are all the same as each other and there's no need for hate. There is no room for hate. The world we live in today is unsustainable and the only way we can survive the 21st century is if we are saved by some miraculous technology leading to a rise in complexity, as John Green puts it talking about the Anthropocene. And I believe the only way forward is through Science, as does Bill Nye and Neil DeGrasse Tyson and all other contemporary great minds. And perhaps there was a little shift in the direction of where I wanted to go in the start of this post and where I ended up but both messages are important, Not being religious isn't a bad thing, and we need a solution for our problems now so that we can have a brighter future. I'll end it on that note, peace out.

Anime

There's nothing wrong with watching anime. I used to watch anime too, but that was a long time ago and it's been probably 6+ years since I was interested enough to watch more than 5 episodes. I'm sure there's anime out there that have some form of values it's trying to inculcate though majority of it is usually fan service (I'm looking at you, Monster Musume). As much as I don't watch anime, because application of some simple economics tells me it's much better to watch educational stuff online than anime, I do think there's nothing wrong with watching anime. To each their own after all, some people do derive entertainment from watching anime and that's okay. Even the fan service ones filled with crude humour with little values, that's still fine.

But the real problem is when anime becomes your whole life and the only culture you're interested in. There's a term called otaku for these people, it's a derogatory term in Japan, it's shameful to let people know you're one. But here in Singapore, boy oh boy do you see weeaboo (derogatory term: Someone who is obsessed with Japan/Japanese Culture/Anime, etc. and attempts to act as if they were Japanese, even though they're far from it. They use Japanese words but usually end up pronouncing them wrong and sounding like total assholes. - Urban Dictionary. They also usually denounce their own culture, which is what sets them apart from people who are just interested in Japan.) after weeaboo proudly proclaiming themselves an otaku. And they say it with such pride as if it's a good thing. Really though, it's not. It implies an absolute obsession with anime culture. It's funny how they all think it's Japanese culture, really it's not. Japan's rich culture can't be boiled down to Tokyo, Harajuku, Akihabara (I forgot the name to this and googled Japan Anime District. Really amazing how they knew what I was talking about.), kimonos, Japanese high school life, sushi and ramen/udon. Although I'll grant you that there are people who are genuinely interested in Japanese culture and anime was the gateway drug, that's fine. I'm talking about the people who are only interested in anime culture and proclaim themselves as interested in Japanese culture.

Then comes the problem when anime becomes your worldview, all of their opinions and thoughts have some kind of root in anime or manga. So last year, the Mars One project was announced. A weeaboo I know made this very comment on the matter

"It's a bad idea, didn't they watch Terra Formars (Bunch of dudes landed on Mars, Mars has alien roaches that fucked them up, took them over and now humans send teams to kill em or they're fucked big time - synopsis provided by a friend)?"

Now that really rustled my jimmies. That his sole argument against the Mars One project was a fucking anime. Not that it's too costly, not that people who regretted going can't come back, not that the technology isn't likely to be out yet by that time, not that if something fucks up on Mars, those people are on their own but a fucking anime about aliens taking over the minds of the humans and coming back to wreck us. Which goes to show that he wasn't paying attention because they have no way of coming back, and you can take over the minds, but you're still stuck with their biological needs, reference Yeerks, and are probably unlikely to know the physiological needs for humans to maintain homeostasis and would likely lose too many to be able to have the manpower needed to come to Earth.

So really, there's nothing wrong with watching anime but never let it be your source of ideas and opinions for history and innovation is rich in ideas that anime only tries to imitate.

Experiences and People

WHY HELLO EVERYBODY. I just pulled off a Tyler Oakley intro and I have no idea why. Probably because it's like 6 am now which is right about 6 pm for me because I'm once again fucking nocturnal. Happens every fucking holiday period. Or just about any period of time where I don't go to school for at least 3 days. And it's been more than a month since I made any real blog posts, the one I made last doesn't really count because it was a rant. So I want to talk about experiences and people, without further ado, lets begin.

Experiences make people. I don't know if you've ever heard it before or or seen it before somewhere. I'll be honest with you I don't either. I've probably heard this from somewhere before but I never really got to appreciate it fully. Or maybe I just never sat down hard enough and long enough to really digest what it meant. So recently I've been watching Crash Course (please check them out yeah?), it's somewhat like Kurz Gesagt (please check these guys too), they make videos less than 10 minutes long about various topics and giving you a crash course on it. You can see where the name came from. I came upon it some couple weeks ago while studying Chemistry and a friend passed the link along to me. It was good help, got me a passing grade, not as good as I would've hoped but that's not the focus here. Anyway, so I snooped around and I found my favourite topic - Astronomy. Space has always been a huge fascination of mine, in case you've yet to realise.

So the host of Crash Course Astronomy is a fellow called Phil Plait and well he might not seem all that interesting really, hell you might not even have heard of the guy. I know I haven't but he is an incredibly knowledgeable person. He even has an asteroid named after him, 165347 philplait. Isn't it just fucking amazing? Not everyone can go around saying oh you know, I've got a rock floating in space with my name on it. And he first got hook onto Astronomy when he was a kid, 5 years old, his father brought home a telescope. According to Plait:

"He aimed it at Saturn that night. One look, and that was it. I was hooked."

And honestly I think it's just absolutely AWESOME. He even talks about it on the Saturn video. Personally I've never gotten to see Saturn with my own eyes, though this year I've managed to see Venus and Jupiter in the night sky for they were bright enough. It's a real pity that I live in bright bright Singapore, the light pollution is so incredibly intense. For city folk like me, you honestly never truly realise how bright your city is until you wander far enough into the wilderness and look back to see the glow of lights in the distance. Even then, it's still far too bright to see the Milky Way. I have no idea when it was that I got so hooked onto Astronomy and space. I couldn't place an event to it. Perhaps all along I had it in me and I just never really knew. I remember watching almost hour long documentaries on space. I actually hunted for them. At the age of merely 14 I knew about solar wind, Venus' atmosphere and what not. Most of my peers don't even know the age of the Solar System. 4.6 billion years, in case you were wondering. Or 6000, if you believe in that shit. Probably, the strongest event I'd say that shaped my passion for the stars would be that one trip when I was 16 back in 2013, when there was a farm stay organised by our school and we got to walk out into the farm at night. The stars, it was a sight I've never seen before and a sky I'd be glad to die under. And we didn't get to sit for a moment to truly appreciate the spectacle before us. Ah well.

But I digress, you see, it's truly the experiences a person's had that makes them who they are. Phil was fascinated as a child by the sight of Saturn, me by the stars I saw. And your experiences and your interpretations of it makes you. So have awesome experiences, and be an awesome person.

Wanting to be right

So before I start on today's blogpost, I just want to talk about my previous one slightly. It's that after discussion with my friends, I've come to the conclusion that my perfect humanity is impossible simply because of the fact that we are human. It is human to seek dominion over others viewed to be lesser. It's probably because of the desire to pass on our genes. We believe our genes are the best and hence will seek to make sure that people with "lesser" genes are less able to do so, as do lions and chimpanzees and a whole host of other lifeforms that have a social structure, even without, as can be seen in polar bears. While a hierarchy of power will always exist as it is inevitable, humans with the most power will often seek to dominate less powerful individuals. And I say a hierarchy of power is inevitable because it's the wisest to let people who are most capable to lead do so but it invariably gives them power as well, creating an imbalance in power and hence a hierarchy. So unless humanity is able to erase this will to dominate from themselves, thereby becoming inhumane, my perfect humanity scenario cannot exist and because they are no longer human, they aren't the perfect humanity but the perfect inhumanity. Therefore a perfect humanity is impossible.

Enough with all that humanity nonsense and back to today's topic which is this desire to be correct. Now there's nothing really wrong with wanting to be correct, in fact I think it's a fantastic thing to want to be correct. It can drive this passion of knowledge, to be as correct as one can possibly be. The issue lies in defiance in the face of overwhelming evidence. To help illustrate, imagine person A saying 2+2=5. Person B proves to person A that 2+2=4.  Now there's 4 possible endings, of which I think I could have experienced. 1, person A admits his mistake and accepts the new information. 2, person A denies this evidence and refuses to listen, cue annoying "lahlahlahlahlah" noises. 3, person A rejects this information simply because person A wants to win, person B is someone close to person A and person A feels person B should let person A win. 4, person A tells person B he's wrong in unrelated topic or person A did unrelated topic correctly.

Now I'm not judging you, I don't know your life story. You may or may not have done scenario 2-4. I probably am guilty of 2 and 4 at one point or another in my life. Here's my opinion though, if you've been proven wrong, just admit it and save yourself a graceful defeat that still reserves you some measure of dignity. Sure person B may gloat over it and what not but know at least that you've gracefully accepted your shortcomings. I've personally experienced 3 and 4 and I've got to say that 3 is nasty to deal with and 4 really made me want to shoot myself in the head. I personally can't bring myself to accept what people tell me without going to the primary source or have it be backed by evidence that proves the hypothesis true. Which was why I found 3 to be hard to deal with as I couldn't allow the other person to "win" even though she was wrong while she felt that I had to give way.

So it seems I've run out of things to say and our time together is at an end. As I've said, next time you're wrong, perhaps it should be wiser to just accept your mistakes and let yourself have a dignified retreat than a defiant fight that would ultimately prove to be in vain.

My Ideal Humanity

So recently I had a discussion with my friends from secondary school about some pretty philosophical shit at a shopping centre up on the roof. Sitting in the night sky was Jupiter and Venus, and indeed it was incredibly sad that no one else noticed them or was watching them. Over the 2 weeks that we were up there, they were moving further and further apart and it was a little saddening to see that.

So we had a discussion on the human brain and various aspects of humanity. This reminded me of a long standing thought I had on humanity. So here's my idea of the perfect mankind and whether I think it's possible and why or why not. Take this with a pinch of salt though, it's my idea of the ideal humanity but it might not be yours and that's alright, you are entitled to what your own thoughts might be.

So here's my idea of the perfect humanity, part of it you might recognise from my previous blog. Imagine that humanity has transcended the idea of "self" and there is no more conflict any where in the world. That humanity has decided as a whole to come together and solve all of humanity's problems, world hunger, poverty, war, crime, terrorism. Everybody adopts this new religion of exploration while not dropping their previous one, be it Atheism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, what have you. In their own way they tie their new religion of exploration to their own.

Now what do I mean by exploration? Well, anything really. It's only defined by the individual. For some it could mean becoming a marine scientist and exploring the oceans. To others, space is the next frontier. To the less otherworldly inclined people, it could just mean exploring their own limits, what they're capable of. Anything and everything is possible to be explored.

But that's not all, it's not just humanity's problems that we'd solve, we'd solve all of Earth's problems as well, reverse deforestation, cleanse the oceans, fix the food chains. Return Earth to the best state it could go back to before humans fucked it all up.

Aside from that, a world under one flag. The abolishment of countries, the idea of race and class. All humans on equal footing. When asked by an extra terrestrial our homeland, we'd reply with Earth, when asked our race, we'd reply human, not I'm a Chinese from China. A borderless Earth, where we would only have one flag that we rally with, our identity to any extra terrestrial to visit Earth. Where we'd have a combined effort to go beyond what is capable alone. Granted there'll be lack of competition but as long as there's the drive to challenge humanity itself, there's no place we can't reach. Well of course there has to be a way of identifying land masses, so it's likely to be more possible that the land is separated into provinces and we could tell other humans we hail from so and so province but when we introduce ourselves to aliens, we'd use Earth as our home.

Simply put, it's just communism as it was meant to be, as a friend of mine said. It probably is too, but in my opinion, it's not possible at the moment simply because of human nature. Not everyone would share this ideology and should one such person have a great enough ambition, he would surely seek domination over others. It's nothing short of expected, it's why we had kings and emperors in the past. It's something we can see in our cousins the Great Apes. Every chimpanzee troop has an alpha male who absolutely dominates over every other male and it is within their nature to seek to usurp the alpha and become the top dog. Such an instinct is in humans as well and it would take a great deal of enlightenment to overcome it. But it's not impossible, I believe a day will come when humans will unite in such a way to reach greater heights than we've ever achieved.

Again, this is another unlikely task as humanity's greed is far too great, as highlighted by the shining, I mean smoggy, example of China, who has forsaken its environment for rapid economic growth. It is highly unlikely that China would willingly cease it pollution and seek to reverse the damage it has wrought upon its own lands.

And I highly doubt it's possible for humans to be able to abandon their flag for a new one representing all humanity. Again like the chimpanzees, humans are highly territorial. It would be highly unlikely that humans would willingly give up their land to all of humanity. But again, I think it's not an impossible achievement.

So that's my thoughts on what the ideal humanity would be like, it's unlikely to happen in the span of a century, maybe even two. But I have a dream, as did Martin Luther King Jr., that this would eventually happen and allow humans to reach greater heights than ever before. As said by a scientist on the New Horizons project,

"We are capable of continuing an adventure that humanity began a hundred thousand years ago as our ancestors walked out of Africa, and we are continuing that exploration and this country is at the forefront of it."

Well I'd look forward to the day where it's humanity, and not just America that's at the forefront of it.

On Amos and his Supporters

Writing this in class with 17 minutes left on the clock because YOLO. Anyway, so Amos Yee recently got out of jail and he's been off shooting his mouth again. Many people were also like "Gee, he looks so terrified and traumatised coming out of jail." To that all I have to say is, there is nothing wrong with a kid learning his place in the world. So what's my opinion of Amos? Well having read his blog post regarding his school life and also from his Facebook status updates, and also having ran into him in school(yes we were in the same secondary school) and finding out about his antics and also a few of his YouTube videos, he gives me the impression of this incredibly stuck up little shit with a massive superiority complex. He believes that he is massively intelligent, infallible, unmatched by his peers and even his elders/mentors/teachers. He thinks he is of great caliber, up there with the likes of Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan. He thinks that he's such a great writer despite his misused vocabulary and imperfect grammar.

His supporters? I shall liken it it to North Korea and any of their 3 Supremes. They worship him and see no fault. Okay, I'm sure Amos has his good points, be it you like his indomitable spirit or his eloquence (I will not deny he is a well spoken person, when compared to most Singaporeans), these are things that you can admire him about. But shit, the majority of his fans you see treats him like fucking Jesus, can't talk shit about him or take his name in vain because he is all powerful and benevolent and what not and oh so infallible. Just take a gander through his comment sections, look at the replies people make to comments asking him to be more humble or even talking shit about him. They fucking defend him with all they have.

To be honest, I think that's real distasteful. There's nothing wrong about admiring someone but it becomes a problem when people are blind to the flaws of their idols. Sure you can agree with Amos' points, but do you agree with his cocky superiority complex that he has as well? What kind of a person does that make you if you are okay with that? A god damn sheep, it makes you. I have much respect for Richard Dawkins and his work in the field of Evolution but I have a problem with his hardline Atheist attitude. I'm Atheist as well but I recognise that religion does have its benefits. It was meant to be a way of living life that has become obsolete in certain areas and also can be misinterpreted and misused to create conflict and violence. All Richard Dawkins sees is the latter, which is not entirely reflective of religion. So here's my parting line, it is alright to follow an idea or an idol, but don't be a blind follower and see the flaws of it as well.