The end of immortality

Fading is my confidence,
Lost is my coherence,
Is this a sign of my mortality,
Or am I losing my sanity?

Will I share the fate of the lotus eater,
Or will my suffering be much greater?

Perhaps in the end it matters not,
For even losing battles must be fought,
Knowing I've strived for the best that could be,
Empowered the few who matter to me,
That, is my unofficial victory.

Take a bloody hint, you necrophilic cunt!!!

It is amazing sometimes. People who you barely know anymore speak to you once a year at most, not in person, just to say something trivial like ‘happy birthday’ which they are not even sincere about. Why do people even bother to commit such trivial hypocrisy when the disadvantages outnumber the benefits infinite to none?

To the bastards who have stopped committing this foolish deed i.e. terminated all forms of contact permanently, well, good for you. Though it took you bunch long enough to realize what you did was incorrigible and have finally moved on. To the arseholes who still continue to do this, wise up, fools. Then again, if that was possible, what happened wouldn’t have happened in the first bloody place. So no need to wise up (since you can’t, anyway), but get the message, then move on.

Some of you may say ‘don’t make permanent decisions based on temporary emotions’. If you do, then you are an idiot, because, well just imagine what one was put through if one has to make such a decision, so that one doesn’t have to go through that again. Especially when those words come from the cause of all the agony. It’s like a thief telling the owner of the house he/she looted to ‘don’t permanently decide to lock the door at night just because you feel threatened the other night’. Bollocks. Complete bollocks.

Adieu to y’all. To the bastards and arseholes, permanently, I hope.

The obvious and the ironic.

Sometimes, it takes more than a smack to the face for some people to realize that they screwed up. Hell, you could smack a brick into some thick person's face and he won't be able to tell if it was a brick or a block of cheese.

In case you do not live in Malaysia and/or have no idea what’s dominating the local newspapers these few days (since last week if I recall correctly), it’s the fact that many people of my generation will be internationally illiterate. As in, they’ll only be able to speak the language that they proudly defend, but is hardly understood by anyone else not of this country.

What’s worse though is that the people, or rather, the person with bollocks for brains who ensured this disaster still had the balls to wonder publicly why is the standard of English among new generation Malaysians so impossibly low. No pun intended by the way.

Some say that the reintroduction of teaching maths and science in English was quite the fiasco. If you ask me, I’d say the re-reverting to teaching said subjects in Malay was a catastrophe, and that is still an understatement. It may as well spell Malaysia’s Armageddon. It’s not that they do not realize the importance of the international language at the time (or at least I hope so), but rather they wanted citizens to be proud of the national language. Another lesson for us that whenever pride is involved, things tend to go, at best, a little too far and at worst, way off target.

Then, on and on people talk about how they should import English teachers and revamp the education system to improve the level of English and all that. And they all keep missing the best method: play more video games.

Seriously. If anyone ever played any of the Final Fantasy games and actually paid attention to the story you can expect them to learn more than reading the entire Lord of the Rings series. And I can say for certain that I owe my competence of the language to the entire Metal Gear Solid storyline; from the Snake Eater/Subsistence prologue to the Guns of the Patriots finale, among other games I play.

That said, one needs to have the right attitude to gaming in order to reap such benefits. Most people I know skip the in-game cut-scenes and jump straight to the gameplay, then complain about the game being too complicated and quit calling it a stupid game, when it is the cut-scenes that tell the story, giving hints on how to play and what to do at any particular stage. These people are the idiots who feed the stereotype of the older generations that playing games make you dumb. The fact however, is this: when people play games, the dumb get dumber and the smart get smarter. Among my closest friends, most of them are gamers who have the correct attitude to gaming; treating it like a movie and actually appreciating the story the directors put behind the gameplay. They are also the ones that I can speak English to comfortably, and is, more often than not, our preferred method of communication.

Teachers all around the world should take this as a serious approach to teaching the language. Parents should also learn to dismiss the stereotypes and pick games with epic storylines (like any Final Fantasy and the whole Metal Gear Solid timeline) for their children to play, instead of letting them surf the net when all they want is to play some pointless Facebook game. In fact, letting them play merely the prologue of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker alone and they will learn more English and Cold War history than they would learn anything from every Facebook game combined, besides how to click real fast at certain parts of the screen and thrash your mouse real fast that is.

With that in mind, I am contemplating on whether or not to take bro Yat’s suggestion of teaching English. Hopefully I will be able to clear the name of games and introduce it as an effective method of teaching the language. Perhaps with this method, we may see the day where every major examination in the country has not just a 100% passing rate, but a 100% A rate for English.

With that, adieu to y’all. Sorry no bombshells today.

Ironic how vast the difference is

Last week, like every other week I spend the weekends over at a very good friend's place. On Saturday night, his brother and a few other people had to bring someone into the house due to said person experiencing some sort of complications. Not wanting to have anything to do with the whole situation or speak our minds aloud to further complicate matters, we went upstairs, away from all the commotion. The area, being predominantly a Malay 'kampung', had their share of such complications before, or so I believe.

Then my friend, Yat, said something epically priceless: "Is it just me, or it is only people who face such problems are those who believe?"

Let me explain.

The 'victim' as I shall refer to as the person facing said complications, was experiencing a period of intense fear/anxiety all of a sudden and, as I believe, for only a very short time. From what I heard, it began abruptly without warning.

Now, there are 2 ways of defining such an explanation. People from the fields of mental health, such as myself, and medical science, know that this is textbook panic attack, or hysteria depending on severity. People from the field of teaching speculation and denying facts, however, believe that this is a sign of a possession, either by malevolent spirits or by demons.

As I mentioned earlier, being a Malay 'kampung', any such occurrences are almost immediately identified as a possession. So, too, was how it was identified when the victim was brought in. Thus I understand how Yat felt when he said that only people who believe in possessions are the only ones who end up ever getting possessed.

This is a problem. When there is a proper medical explanation to such symptoms, there are people who do not seem to be able to have that cross their mind, but instead jump immediately to a pseudo-explanation. The root of it? Simple. Back in the day, when people did not have the means to satisfy their own infinite curiosity, they relied on pseudo-explanations to satisfy, almost to gratify, in fact, their own need to know; the greatest of which is the non-existent dictator called God. It is sad that now, when people are capable of finding true and proper explanations, people still rely on pseudo-explanations to questions in life.

On a side note, it has been a while since the last time anyone ever told me to go to hell. When I was a child, I used to fear the notion. Recently, however, some saint-wannabe prat just told a friend to go to hell because he used strong words in idle chit-chat. And his name was Gabriel. Probably the same kind of Gabriel as the one in Gundam Seed Destiny, that war-mongering prick, I thought. Not very pure yourself, if you condemn another, for whatever the reason. If I were there, I might just tell him how happy I would be to go to hell by being a bit obnoxious and reciting my own poem ‘My Immortal Stand’.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

P.S.: Long hiatus, I know. But, could be longer.

Can't stress it enough

I realize, again, that I've been repeating myself over the same points over and over again. It’s probably a curse; being only able to spot weakness and not strength.

Well, here’s something fresh for a change.

Don’t know if he knew it when he first played it for the class, but the song 手紙 ～拝啓 十五の君へ～ by Angela Aki was initially a song for the 75th NHK National School Music Contest in 2008, Junior High School (12–15 years old) Division. It became such a hit that from that point on, many schools use it as their graduation song.

And it’s surprising in 2 ways, to me at least. First is that it’s not a hard song to play if it were in C major. Second is that because it is NOT in C major, it’s unexpectedly frustrating. So to anyone who wants to try it but has an incompetent ear like mine, it’s in A♭ major.

That’s probably one of the many weaknesses of being musically trained with the harmonica: too focused on C, that every other scale you hear it as a C and only realize it is not when you actually try it out.

An equally good graduating song would be Nickelback’s Photograph. A little old and inappropriate at some parts, but nothing says ‘missing the memories’ like it.

This is actually a bad thing. If I keep this up, I’ll be just like people of the past generation who listen to old tracks and think new ones like the totally terrible ****** ****** or **** **** etc. are the killers of music.

But whatever. That isn’t quite the main issue. What is is that I’ve always wanted to die before I get old, but based on how things are going, I already am.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

Nothing is right. Meaning everything is wrong

This is usually not the kind of time anyone would want to spend on blogging, since the exams are on and all. Which is precisely why I do it. Because this, being Malaysia, is the kind of time where everyone is too busy committing things they know to memory to have any time for learning anything new. I doubt anyone reads the newspaper for these few days when they’re too busy reading their textbooks and notes. And what I have to say is precisely NOT meant for them, more because they can’t be bothered than because they don’t deserve it; in fact it would do them a world of difference if they saw this. It’s for people who are concerned not about their future money or income or anything of the like, but rather their future.

And I shall begin by referencing a post from ‘The Carapace’ and a news article quoted there. I will not bother repeating whatever that is there here, but I will point out some of the finer details that people either don’t know about, ignore, deny or acknowledge but decided nothing can be done. Sure, their setting is in Australia but I think people are intelligent enough to localize. Unless of course you’re too fixated in obeying a nonexistent dictator.

First point being that, and I quote, “Every election people find themselves asking politicians what they will give them in return for their vote. They forget that we employ our politicians to do a job. We should approach the process of electing them as we would if we were hiring an employee. Can you imagine going into a job interview and having your potential future employer ask you what you are willing to give them in exchange for the job? Shouldn't you be hired on the basis of merit rather than bribery? Of course you should.”

I guess it goes without saying that only people who deserve the votes will get them, not people who promise to be deserving of it. There’s no way of telling if one is being true to their word – like a decent human being – or being a typical politician – lying their way into and then abusing the newfound power and privilege – at all. I wanted to use bona fide but as you can see from the context, it is clearly inappropriate.

I’m not saying all politicians are liars. No doubt there are some out there with clearly good intentions, but unfortunately for these endangered number of people, that’s just the stereotype. And as I have said before, people who stereotype are unfortunate people who have seen more of what they shouldn’t have than what they should have.

The solution? There isn’t one. Because the only thing close to being perfectly fair is communism. But the problem is that it’s way too fair that people lose whatever bragging rights they may have, and that’s the problem with people. Even if we left shame out of the equation, we all still prefer to die proud than live as equals.

Or maybe there is. For one thing, voting shouldn’t be an obligation; it should be a privilege. Every time the elections draw near you hear “exercise your rights” with an almost ‘or else’ tone. Why bother? You’re just pushing people who know nothing or those who can’t be bothered to risk making the wrong choice. At least make sure the people who vote are interested and educated so that at least they know for themselves they are making the right decision.

Speaking of education, the current system’s got to change as well. Currently, and apparently it’s not exclusive to Malaysia, children face their parents’ personal firing squad whenever they come back with a report card that has anything which is not an ‘A’. I’m not alone when I say that school, the way it is now, is almost completely useless. It’s so bad that ‘the dim kids work and work and work until their little hormones are fried and then emerge after five years, suicidal, mad and with an A-level in media studies. The bright kids, meanwhile, lounge all day knowing that a CV will never be checked so, when asked how many A-levels they have, they can lie and say 264’ (Jeremy Clarkson, 27 January 2008). And I totally agree with him when he said ‘all school does is put you off things that might, later in life, be interesting’.

I knew a person from my school who was at the top of the grade without fail every year, but freaks out every time she attempts to cook an egg for herself. Seriously, children in school should be taught to survive as an adult, not be a quantum physicist who cleans public toilets.

Then there’s the segregation. They force science students to be Isaac Newton, Ivan Pavlov and Dmitri Mendeleev all at the same time within two years, when they might, like me, end up with social sciences. Like psychology, for instance. Sure they prepare you for what you might be going into, assuming that there’s nowhere else you can go. It’s like bringing a nuclear warhead into a parliamentary debate: infinitely excessive.

Then there’s history. Instead of all the meaningless dates to memorise about who died when and what year did he take the whole world down with him, why not discuss the impact of whatever his actions may be?

Better yet, why not scrap the whole subject and use newspapers instead? Instead of learning about the past that we cannot do anything about, why not learn about the present and at least know which idiotic politician is taking bribes today so that when you’re of age you know not to vote for him or her instead of learning about how dead some fool was a thousand years ago, and the only benefit that will be today is knowing how much deader he is now compared to then?

But I guess that’s not possible either because what was once known as current affairs is now known as politics and students are not allowed to take part in it. The only thing students are allowed to take part in is mass suicide in the slowest form possible: losing sanity by replacing it with irrelevant knowledge.

Well, nothing is perfect. Perhaps in the same way that perfect is nothing.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.

Can't Help But Hate It

Seriously. Epic drama where the tired ones are the supporting characters, good Samaritan suffers while the swindler is having the time of his/her life, rain pelting down ONLY when I’m outdoors, what’s not to hate?

I understand that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but honestly saying, I’ve seen more attractive lavatories.

Sometimes it’s the X-factor that you look out for, but it’s the only thing you never see.

It’s sad to know that sometimes innocence is just another way of saying ignorance; in the same way that sometimes personality is just another way of saying belief.

I’m feeling more and more lifeless by the day. I just hope that it stops being metaphorical and starts getting literal. Right about now would be nice.

Adieu to y’all.

Remember the Terms, Please.

Done some thinking during yesterday’s rather appalling day, frankly, and realized maybe I should call it quits. Because this is more than what I signed up for. It’s like signing up for a job as driver then made to be part of a bank job. Sure, it’s my job to drive around, but not be the driver for a heist that will land me in prison.

And y’all have got to realize that asking me to do what you’re asking of me will only work in the same way as digging a grave with a spanner will work; that by the time you’re done, so much time has passed you might as well bury yourself in the very same hole.

Subtly adding terms to my contract don’t work, in case you have a not so commendable memory. You have doubts? Questions? A problem with amending it? The solution is simple. Fire me.

And it’s the last week. Only when I am in the very same position do I not agree with what the bunch is saying; ‘there isn’t much time left, let’s focus on the job’. Right. If so, stop asking questions. Because after all, you bunch are unaware of my terms to begin with. I agreed to help carry the burden whenever I can, not fill a gap or take a responsibility.

But then again, I don’t blame you. You bunch don’t know me well enough. No one who hasn’t will ever want to. Probably the same for those who already know me well.

Adieu to y’all. Think about it, because I certainly have.

Immortal Journey

As I open the door to my personal sanctuary,
I prepared myself to leave this eternal winter,
Leaving a print behind in the bitter cold,
Knowing that it will eventually,
Be erased by the raging snow.

How I wish I could be,
In the spring that I could only see,
Through a window into a different world,
One so close yet so far from me.

I stare on into the unattainable comfort,
Knowing I need to again tread the blizzard,
To leave the twinkling hope behind,
And unreal desires out of mind.

Perhaps I can find comfort in chaos,
Or establish order in anxiety,
Perhaps I can find meaning in the mundane,
And make a living in this barren, winter wasteland.

Moral Morality

Last night Vingent and I had a really later dinner at around 11pm at the local McD, and talked quite a load, on things like our coming industrial training, how our home may possibly be haunted because some daft, superstitious and gutless hallucinating friends of Fan saw some shadow-or-other dashing up the stairs, and how some people can be plain degenerates when it comes to being human. Or humane, for that matter.

But they all don’t quite matter because as some wise person supposedly said, ‘if everyone in the world were good people, then the world would be a very boring place and heaven would be made redundant’. Quite true, save the fact that a realm that doesn’t exist cannot be redundant. And that shadow-or-other might actually be the guardian demon that I’ve always wanted, that is here to watch over me and curse whoever who crosses me without provocation.

But possibly the most important thing we discussed that night was human morality, how it is truly meant to be and the role of religion and our very own will in enforcing it.

Back when I was just a child, there’s the first ever series of anime called Digimon that I was totally crazy over, and as I recall the part of it that really inspired me to be a good guy was the 8 crests and the values and virtues they represent: Courage, Friendship, Love, Sincerity, Knowledge, Reliability, Hope, and lastly, Light, probably some religious propaganda in an otherwise good mix of values. Given its irrelevance, I have decided to interpret Light as simply being a good person, in general, seeing as how darkness has always been wrongly attributed to evil.

Right. So we have these 8 values that would’ve sufficed for us to live in this world peacefully, but only if it came from within ourselves, as portrayed by the very same show. Distort it, or if it comes with ulterior motive, or if it was otherwise forced, then it works too, for a while before it backfires just as effectively as you wouldn’t want it to.

And this is where religion spoils it all. Every one of it. Especially the monotheistic ones. Even the agnostic Buddhism and its karmic claptrap is no exception. Why? Simple, really.

You see, what every single religion out there are saying, to be very honest, direct and blunt without any form of caramel coating, is, ‘do good or else’, and monotheistic ones take it a step further by changing it to, ‘obey me for I am ‘good’, or else’. To spell it out, every religion has this supposed realm called Hell and every evil doer or disobeyers will be sent there, disintegrated in to a billion useless pieces and burned with eternal hellfire as punishment. But what for? What’s fear have to do with anything?

Sure, fear is widely regarded as a very effective weapon, probably even the most effective, if you’re interested in warfare, subtle or open, it makes no difference. It’s also perceived by mankind as the most effective deterrent. But it still is nothing more than a mere weapon. When people forget the existence of such a weapon, or when they have finally disarmed this psychological nuclear warhead, how long will such virtues of humanity last? Not even a fraction of a split second, I’m afraid.

When it comes down to it, people have got to want to do good just because. They’ve got to want to, say, not murder random strangers, and not because it’ll get them a life sentence, death sentence, or eternal youth, burning in flames. That’s why we need to get rid of the ‘or else’ factor. Otherwise, it all seems pointless. People are being ‘not evil’ out of fear. Not because that’s what they want. Because with fear, all one can be is ‘not evil’, because the evil intentions are there, just not acted out because of the possible consequences, and that’s not being properly good. The only way to be a truly good person is to want to be so from the bottom of one’s heart, without any fear or doubt. Only then can people actually help others because they are concerned about the welfare of others. True empathy and altruism, if you will.

And in studying psychology I know more than ever that intrinsic motivation and rewards work infinitely better than any negative reinforcement or punishment. It is infinitely ineffective, detrimental even at certain extents, to rely on fear to enforce morality. Not to mention that in doing so, one is also being a hypocrite, using immorality to enforce morality. I remember as a child my father was (and still is) the kind of person who’d want you to be moral, but would want to do whatever he likes himself. And so I grew up getting caned whenever I told a lie and also whenever he told one and I pointed it out. Point being, people mimic others; so if you want morality out of someone, then first practice what you preach. Leadership by example, if you will; instead of by fear, coercion and hypocrisy.

What I propose here is an ideal, one that will definitely outlast any weapon, including fear. Weapons wear with usage, and will eventually break. Ideals, on the other hand, live forever, so long as they are properly initiated. And as with many old ideals, this one, too will hopefully replace reality one day.

And with that, adieu to y’all.

Visionary nonsense

I had a series of the weirdest dreams today. After this morning’s demo I came home for a nap and before I woke up I was a member of the SAS, in an anti-terrorist op when suddenly I had superpowers. Then after class I took another nap and there was this most bizarre series of dreams where the person I desire to kill the most is trying to reconcile the friendship he fucked up and a complete stranger was shamelessly flirting with me.

Now all this seems like it’d give me a whole lot of question marks and whatnot but actually it also gave me something to laugh about, especially after the demo that didn’t go as well as expected and the mock open book test where despite it being an open book test, I realized if I were to write all the points the lecturer was looking for, it would’ve taken me an hour to answer a single question. And earn about 40 marks for a 25 mark question. Guess I’ll have another if I screw up tomorrow’s Japanese test 2.

People around are starting to get interview offers for their industrial attachment. Now I’m wondering when I will be getting mine. Worse yet, am I getting mine during important days like presentation or midterm? Or at all? And still? This seems like the semester with the least happenings. And this seems to make time pass very fast. Kind of like working, only shittier.

Adieu to y’all. And check this out guys. This will hopefully be the future of education. Hopefully.

Natural Selection Or Overpopulation?

Today, I am somehow reminded of the problem with humanity. We have long since brushed off natural selection from our kind, and thus we are the most overpopulated species in the world.

In the shower I thought to myself, has any human been sterilized to inhibit breeding like many pets have? Have humans ever been killed off due to overpopulation like many other animals, the crow being a very good example? No.

Many people yap on and on about how we must preserve the ecosystem and whatnot by not killing animals and keeping forest reserves and other usual bullshit, but these so-called environmentalists are okay with pest extermination, just because they are pests to humans. Aren’t we also disrupting the food chain by exterminating food of some animal that will be food for some other animal that will eventually be our food? Or we kill off animals that are overpopulated ‘because their numbers disrupt the ecosystem’. Then what are we? There are more than 4 billion humans in the world and we are not disrupting the ecosystem? Yes. Even when we’re usually beyond the top of the food chain? Yes. Why? Because we overbreed livestock and kill them off for food. Yeah, right.

All this is because we chose to exclude ourselves from the winnowing of natural selection. Everyone deserves to live. Then what? Livestock don’t deserve to live? The veggies don’t deserve to live? And don’t start with veggies aren’t alive or anything along those lines, please. Otherwise you’re probably not intelligent enough to understand all that I’m writing and you’ll be wasting your time reading all this. And so to all the vegetarians and vegans out there, please get some things straight. If you’re practicing that kind of diet because you don’t want to kill animals, then that is having double standards.

What’s the problem? Why do we face this problem? Simple, actually. We put ourselves on an imaginary pedestal; one that even if existed, we’re unworthy of. Egocentric people who don’t know their place start by bullshitting about how we are the most advanced of all living things and so it is our duty to protect others and all that nonsense. So what if we’re the most advanced beings? Well I’ll tell you so what. So it means we must take it upon ourselves to rule the planet and continue overpopulating the planet. And since we’re so great that natural selection don’t work on us, it don’t matter if I’m weak I’ll still go find a mate that’s equally weak and so give birth to a weak offspring that will not have a chance in brutal society when he grows older.

To cut to the chase, we’re breeding suffering. Many ‘souls’ exist to suffer unnecessarily. And since suffering is contagious, well, you should see where I’m going by now. All because we gloat. We claim to be what we’re not. As a result we turn the world upside down and end up fighting against each other because each has their idea of what’s right. Which are all wrong to begin with. And the properly right solution is also wrong because that’s being inhuman, immoral or whatever. And so we doom ourselves to this irreversible cycle of wrongs at every turn and no way of turning back, because it’s centuries too late. Or should I say two millennia?

I’m saying all this because I know I carry defective but dominant genes in me and so I wish to just die off before I succeed in passing them on. And this is quite what I’d call learned helplessness, a term I learned yesterday, and this term has explained my misery that began since the 17th of November 1990. Because whatever I do that is great is not being received positively because that’s what’s expected of me and any expectation that I don’t meet, I get skinned for it.

Adieu to y’all. Don’t think about it, people. Some mistakes can never be corrected, especially when it’s 2011 years too late.

How Everything Flies

It’s been a long while since I last read through every blog of every single friend of mine. Not that I did recently. Just surfed through a few that had made a positive impression in my life. And did I find many points of interest.

Don’t know why, but after that short surf, I actually thought of calling each of them out for a long chat to sort of reminisce about the good old days, though knowing me, there probably isn’t much to talk about. There may not even be any good old days to begin with.

I thought to myself ‘it’s not just distance that makes the heart grow fonder. Time does that as well’. And indeed, though some have been nothing more than mere friends of friends, their lives after we parted seemed so… colourful, for the lack of better words. Sometimes you see them put up some ridiculous story about how they were involved in some dilemma inducing situations so bizarre you thought it could only ever happen to you, you’d think ‘wow’, and for once, really understand the kind of situation they’re in. True empathy, for once.

I dare say I’ve never felt such nostalgia before. No idea why I’m feeling it now. And towards people that I hardly ever converse with, if ever. And how they even made that positive impact to begin with is also beyond me. All of a sudden I feel so lonely.

Perhaps this is what it feels like to truly miss someone, even if it’s someone that I was never close with. Still, why am I feeling this, I’m still trying to figure out. Could be that I desire more than just that plain hi-bye friendship. Maybe what I wanted was to be proper friends with these people. Or maybe I’m just regretting not doing that back when we had ample chance for interaction. Whatever the reason, I feel like there’s something to hold on to still, although deep down inside I know there’s nothing.

This is the first time in who knows how long that I realized how heartrending the past can be. Worst part of it is that there was something that I could’ve done, but didn’t, and only after it’s way too late did I realize that that something was worth doing. Guess I’ll be expecting a teary dream tonight as well.

Well, adieu to y’all. Damn, I’m getting softer and softer with time. That’s not a good sign.

P.S.: The extreme heat and dry winds of CNY that we all know and hate are back. Let's see how long will they last.

Well, too bad for you, you're not who you wanted to be.

A few things have changed since the beginning of time. People start to realize that the earth moves, not the sun; people realize that illnesses are caused by biological factors, not some witchdoctor’s curse. People gain knowledge and wisdom over time. People change their knowledge base according to prevailing evidence, which normally gets closer and closer to the truth.

Some others, well, let’s just say that they hold on to the idea that earth is the centre of the universe. Long story short, they’re satisfied that 1 and 1 is two and don’t want to know what the fuck is multiplication or division.

Thus is the birth of ignorance. This, unfortunately, chose not to die off just yet. No doubt where there is civilization there’s surely a fraction of idiocy. I chose not to discover how long has ignorance been part of humanity, but the fact remains that over the countless years instead of dwindling the number of ignorant fucks have been overpopulating the world.

I quote from an idiot, ‘if asked a stupid question, give a stupid answer’. This is why the number of such people increases. What we should do instead is educate them so that they need not ask such questions. Unless they are pranksters, in which we should not only ignore entirely, but also get infinite light years away from. The distance is because these people usually stand out like faeces in a golden toilet. And they’re loud too. So get as far away as ever possible so that you don’t hear them being happy or sad for all the wrong reasons. Like getting happy when someone commits a traffic infraction.

The worst thing, they’ve never looked at themselves through a mirror. Or any kind if reflection for that matter. They call others idiots when they’re no better off. They should really know that if one’s got nothing constructive to say, it’s best to keep quiet or you’ll risk hurting feelings, or worse, get beaten up if you happen to offend another member of your idiotic species.

Another thing people fail at is differentiating grades from intelligence. Having good grades don’t mean intelligence. I’ve repeated this too often I don’t feel like elaborating again.

Ah yes. Nowadays intelligence is measured not just by how easily you are understood, but also how easily you understand others.

How heartrending it is to notice such people more easily during the festive season. And you thought every last hypocrite in the world has sold themselves to the evil that is politics.

Well, adieu to y’all. I suppose idiots celebrate harder and louder than others.

Chinese New YEOUCH!

I am now back from my parents’ hometown. A little town in Perak called Padang Rengas. Or is it even a little town?

It’s been 13 years since I was last here. The last time I was here I was just a kid, so everything seemed so big to me. But now I realize how the supposed town is just a long street. The exact opposite can be said about me, from the perspective of my relatives. Last time they saw me I was just a kid. Now I’m 20. If I were to go in without my father, they’d probably have pointed a shotgun at me like they would any other intruder. And now I go back there entertaining their children like how they used to entertain me. I felt the kind of shame for troubling them before as much as I felt the frustration of having to deal with a bunch of hyperactive pubescent kids.

And it was a mistake to be bringing the laptop back there. Because the moment I took it out the kids claimed it as theirs and played all the way until 4 in the morning, which they choose the noisiest NFS games and blasted the revs beyond sleepable tolerance.

Bro Brendon had it worse. His laptop and iPhone4 was robbed for as long as we were back there. By kids who had iPhones themselves. And a VAIO.

All that aside, it was fun being back there. Seeing old relatives, spending a lot of time enduring the whack kids’ bullying together with my cousin, and bullying them back with really lame jokes.

But being back there, I hadn’t time to handle what actually mattered most at the time. Stuff like my IA documents, for instance.

And my trip to Klang was cancelled because Vingent’s ride was sabotaged. Well, sort of.

Adieu to y’all. Now to continue making use of my few hours of ACTUAL holiday.

Kablooey Again

I mentioned before that I could make it back home for CNY. Now I hope I hadn't instead. The reason is simple, really.

First of all, when you have a bastard making plans for a whole bunch of people, you really don’t want to be a part of if, lest you decide you don’t want to go for whatever nonsense that is planned and then the whole plan is cancelled because someone doesn’t want to go and end up having every single person in the planet hating you because you screwed their plans up.

That is my current predicament. I came home only to find out that I will not have my personal time to lay back and relax because my father has arranged that I and some other relatives go back to his hometown so that every single person back there will know that I exist and then he can get drunk for a whole day with the rest of them. Worst thing about it? I have got not a single day to rest, to do my shopping, to do my assignment nor to settle my industrial attachment business. Then I’m back to a place that he himself has forbidden me to go to 13 years ago so that I will not have any bleeding thing to do for 3 valuable days.

Not that I have a choice either. Because if I do refuse I will, literally, get skinned alive and my carcass would go through everything as if I was not yet dead.

I never thought I’d say this, but given the circumstances, for once I’d be better off at Kampar than at home.

Adieu to y’all. Wish me a swift death please.

Humanity - Epitome Of Irony

Chinese New Year is coming up. And I won't be skinned alive by my father as I initially expected because we did indeed get the week off. However, some other things also weren't exactly the way I initially expected, and for the worse at that.

For instance this has turned out to be a very wet and very cold CNY season. You see CNY locally has always been attributed with extreme heat and really dry winds. This year, however, it rains everyday still, and the breeze is still there but i wouldn't exactly call it a dry one. Seems like the 2012 stuff is for real, except that it's not as big a deal as Armageddon. Well, then again we won't really know until next year, will we?

Secondly, the celebration has become a little too generic. You see, we have all sorts of special occasions worth celebrating. CNY for example, Independence Day, Christmas and so on. Sure, the celebrations all have something in common, that is to go mad, yell like you don't need your vocal chords, turn everyone around you deaf with the air polluting noise you call singing, get piss drunk and get pissed on if you get too drunk. But these days, that's all celebrations are. It has become too generic. Not a single holiday is being spent uniquely anymore.

Back in the day CNY was all about lion dances, blindingly bright red lanterns, equally red clothes, staying up all night gambling then going around visiting family and friends and chat all day reminiscing about the good old days. And that's that. Nowadays all that tradition is done in private while in public we do the generic holiday stuff I mentioned earlier. Sooner or later the traditional bits done in private may go away as well. And that's very much the same as Christmas or New Year or whatever. Even the Hari Raya celebrations are getting generic. Each individual celebration seems to have lost its unique value and are all turning into a mere generic celebration. In time we won't even know what in bloody earth we are celebrating, just knowing that we have to celebrate something on certain days in the year because that's what has been done for the past uncountable years.

I suppose this is the idea of unity of some people. And it'll still be fine if each ethnic group were to keep their individual identities. But that seems impossible because things that one does as tradition seems offensive to another and instead of being tolerated they are being wiped out. While other really offensive activities are given the liberty to continue offending others and demand tolerance of others. Or face the consequences. More like oppression than anything else.

What's worse this time around is the irony of people. Victims of hypocrisy end up being hypocrites themselves. And you thought they'd know better. This is what happens when you teach your children 'If you can't beat them, join them'. This is also why the number of barbarians and criminals grow while civilization dwindles in numbers. The proper proverb should be 'If you can't beat them, die trying'.

Adieu to y'all. And that's 3 posts squeezed into 1.

Breaking The Breaking Point

Or Rather, Just Breaking The Long Hiatus. Yes Fellas, I'm Back No Matter How Much You Don't Like It.

This Past Semester Holiday Has Been The Longest And Most Well Spent One. In The Past, Semester Breaks Were Spent Waking Up To The Golden Sunshine Straight To The Face Every Morning, Staring Into The Computer Screen Waiting For Something To Happen All The Way Until Bedtime. And The Cycle Repeats Until Something Undesirable But Inevitable Comes; The New Term. Screw It All. This Time It Was Still The Waking Up And Staring Into The Computer, Only With A Purpose. Right. Staring Into The Computer Screen With A Purpose.

Being The Longest Also Doesn't Mean That It Was Long Enough, Though. That Said, There Was Enough Time In Between For Me To Observe, And Realize Right After, A Very Interesting, Yet Simple, Fact.

People Who Stereotype Aren't Bad People, They're Just Unlucky People. Because It Is Safe To Say That The Vast Majority Of The Human Population Is Stupid. In Fact, The Vast Majority Of Anything Alive Is Stupid. By Our Own Stupid Human Standards, At Least.

There Are Definitely More Untrained Dogs In The World, For Example, Than Trained Ones So By Layman Definitions, An Untrained Dog Is A Dumb Dog, Because The Layman Is Too Stupid To Know That For A Dog To Understand Human Orders They Have To Be Trained, Hence Their Labelling Of Said Dog As Stupid. They May Have (Or Have Had) The Potential Or Talent (Or Whatever Stupid Words That Have Been Invented To Sweet Coat Stupidity) To Learn, But Are Stupid Nevertheless In The Ultimate End In The Given Situation.

Back To The Human Population. Like I Mentioned The Vast Majority Of The Population Is Stupid. Origin, Ethnic And Whatnot Do Not Differ. It's Just That When The Population Of A Certain Race In A Given Area Is More Than That Of Another, We Tend To See More Of The Stupid People From That Race. As A Chinese I Was Raised With The Impression Given By The Community That The People Of The Other Races Are Dumber Than Ever Possible. So It Was Without A Doubt That When I See People Of Said Other Races Doing Stupid Things Like Pulling Dumb Bike Stunts In Busy Streets, I Tell Myself, 'This Is As Smart As They Can Possibly Get'. But In School I Was Infinitely Surprised When Some People From Said Other Races Can Be Intelligent, Civilized, Well-Mannered And Make Good Friends, Even.

Then Recently In A Bus I Saw A Bunch Of Highschoolers Who Are Members Of My Ethnic Group, And I Thought, 'Well, Not Too Bad' As Judging From Their Uniform They Go To Some Non-Government International Kind Of School, So I Also Assumed That They Had At A Decent Level Of Intelligence. But Then The Whole World Went Kablooey. Because When The Bus Arrived At Their Stop, One Of Them Had To 'Press The Bell Repeatedly As It Makes A Nice Ringing Sound (A Sentence From One Of The Books My Mom Used To Teach Me My Manners When I Was A Child)'. Naturally The Bus Driver (Who Ironically To Me Was One Of The People From The Supposedly Dumb 'Other Race' That Turned Out To Be Civilized And Well-Mannered) Gave The Bunch A Predator's Glare And A Short Tell-You-Off, While I Wished He Had Also Thrown In A Good, Long Scolding.

So Yeah. That Day Was The Driver's Unlucky Day To Have Met Idiot Degenerates From My Ethnic Group While It Was My Lucky Day To Have Seen An Intelligent One From His.

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Every Time I Read One Of Jeremy Clarkson's Books I'll Be Given The Free Look As If I've Inhaled Nothing But Laughing Gas All My Life. Maybe I Should Just Read It In Private Next Time. Yes, You Read It Correctly. I Have Another Book. And It Will Keep Me Sane, And The People Around Me Alive, For As Long As There Are Pages I've Not Read.

Adieu To Y'all. And Heads Up, In Case I Don't Do My 'All First Letter Caps' Next Time.