To Be Loved For Money Again

A slightly edited version from the Pub:

Traditionally, people might embark on a relationship not for one's sophistication or one's ability to share the private spheres of our hearts, but simply for one's financial and social status in order to promote the family's status in the social hierarchy or mitigate the competitive nature between aristocratic families. Not until the eighteenth century, the romantic conception of love has emerged where one wishes to harbour romantic sentiment by means of poetry or a piece of exquisite music. It was not long before the pecuniary attachment to love was denied the opportunity of expression. We are living in the era where one easily arrives the conclusion that money will necessarily nurture shallow relationships.

However, owing to the similarly constructed notions of romantic love and marriage, we are often in muddle of what distinctions between them ought to be made. Our failure to distinguish romantic love as archaic impulse and marriage as social institution easily leads us to forge an inevitably connection between them, that marriage is an extended contract of the vows we have once made in a romantic relationship. If these two sentiments are inherently contradictory, it is because marriage is founded on our financial struggle to keep the family in condition, the essential element which our romantic sentiment is deeply opposed to.

Consequently, emerging there are two schools of thought in love. One school proposes that one should find in her partner logically reducible elements: money, fame, social status etc. Where traditional conception of love may require us to sacrifice for our partners, self-love, as opposed to selfless love, ought to be raised to a status of superiority. The other school, as obvious as it seems, condemns this pecuniary culture. It insists that money will ultimately nurture shallow relationships. A similar trajectory can hence easily be drawn for one's obsession for one's body, outlook, or even sexual candour. One should find in her partner some sort of inner beauty, elements that are critically independent of change and decay, things that might not be easily washed away by misfortunes such as intelligence, compassion, and sophistication.

In the midst of choosing sides, for the fear of being shallowly condemned, a great deal of social critics and groups of people whose thinking is submitted to the predictable brand of the mature middle class nonsense wish to draw their moral landscape from the latter school as the sole criterion for true love. Is our quest to find true love must necessarily be based on one's quality rather than one's material possession?

Perhaps it is shallow psychology to think that it is impossible for genuine affection to grow out of the love of one's money. Though the instinctive root may be self-interest, through the assistance of money, one may have felt for the help, namely, an expensive cosmetic set or a McQueen's dress, which she owes to his male counterpart that easily develops into sincere love. In the cynical world of ours, most of us severely condemn those who decide matters measured in money. However, the fact always runs counter to what is considered noble. It is precisely money or other superficial elements which one's attractiveness is based on. The fact that people are rich or look beautiful easily fools us into thinking that some sort of mysterious schemas are deeply attached to them. It is ignorance that muddies our objective judgement on them. It leaves room for a reflective delight which our imaginative vision flowers.

We are often told that we should not fall at first glance or for qualities that are unable to bear the verdict of time, that we should give a clear-eyed investigation into the depth of waters before we can testify for our romantic destiny. If we are prone to falling in love with people whom we know nothing, it is because they defy our ease of understanding. We are creatures of habit and therefore liable to grow contemptuous of what is familiar. If knowing each other means deviating away from the romantic conception of love, then perhaps we should cut away our effort for psychoanalysis and fall for merely superficial elements like money or physical beauty. The quest to find a true love is hence critically dependent on understanding absenteeism, that a great deal of affection is based on the paradoxical fact of less understanding.

Social conventions have prevented us from anchoring our criterion of love to money. But we should not be condemned merely on the ground of self-interest. Because things that invoke our promotion of self-interests are the ones that generate our desire of love. Therefore, love can be seen as a direction, not a place, and burns itself out with the attainment of its goal.

While the romantic sentiment has been at play, it seems unjust to rule out the possibility to summon genuine love out of superficial elements such as money. Nevertheless, wealth can purchase the reality of love. It may be undesirable and less noble. Unfortunately, it is a fact.

W

To Be Loved For Money

Originally published on the Pub which I am one of the contributors:

Traditionally, we wish to embark on a relationship not for one's financial status, but simply to find a companion who is able to open up the private sphere of our hearts in our torment souls and avoid contemplating romantic dramas on TV in evenings alone. In the world of the twenty first century, however, the romantic conception of love has undergone a paradigm shift. The definition of love, depending not on being curled around and talked to with infantile, affectionate language after making passionate love in bed, but rather, on whether the male counterpart can afford an overly priced apartment or whether he can financially allow his female counterpart to wage an exhausting wardrobes competition with her female friends. What precisely damages the clarity of this traditional romantic conception of love? What heartlessly reduces the abstract notion of love to a couple of Louis Vuitton handbags or an fetish obsession with high heel shoes?

If love is getting commercialised, it is perhaps because capitalism has succeeded in exploiting human greed as an instinctive root of human nature. Driven by such pecuniary culture, we are often liable to worry at length about whether our financial status will allow us to sustain our living. Therefore, it is not uncommon to see money being regarded as an object of worship which ultimately leads to the innovatively capitalistic formation of love.

Consequently, emerging there are two schools of thought in love. One school proposes that one should find in her partner logically reducible elements: money, fame, social status etc. Where traditional conception of love may require us to sacrifice for our partners, self-love, as opposed to selfless love, ought to be raised to a status of superiority. The other school, as obvious as it seems, condemns this pecuniary culture. It insists that money will ultimately nurture shallow relationships. A similar trajectory can hence easily be drawn for one's obsession for one's body, outlook, or even sexual candour. One should find in her partner some sort of inner beauty, elements that are critically independent of change and decay, things that might not be easily washed away by misfortunes such as intelligence, compassion, and sophistication.

In the midst of choosing sides, for the fear of being shallowly condemned, a great deal of social critics and groups of people whose thinking is submitted to the predictable brand of the mature middle class nonsense wish to draw their moral landscape from the latter school as the sole criterion for true love. Is our quest to find true love must necessarily be based on one's quality rather than one's material possession?

Perhaps it is shallow psychology to think that it is impossible for genuine affection to grow out of the love of one's money. Though the instinctive root may be self-interest, through the assistance of money, one may have felt for the help, namely, an expensive cosmetic set or a McQueen's dress, which she owes to his male counterpart that easily develops into sincere love. In the cynical world of ours, most of us severely condemn those who decide matters measured in money. However, the fact always runs counter to what is considered noble. It is precisely money or other superficial elements which one's attractiveness is based on. The fact that people are rich or look beautiful easily fools us into thinking that some sort of mysterious schemas are deeply attached to them. It is ignorance that muddies our objective judgement on them. It leaves room for a reflective delight which our imaginative vision flowers.

We are often told that we should not fall at first glance or for qualities that are unable to bear the verdict of time, that we should give a clear-eyed investigation into the depth of waters before we can testify for our romantic destiny. If we are prone to falling in love with people whom we know nothing, it is because they defy our ease of understanding. We are creatures of habit and therefore liable to grow contemptuous of what is familiar. If knowing each other means deviating away from the romantic conception of love, then perhaps we should cut away our effort for psychoanalysis and fall for merely superficial elements like money or physical beauty. The quest to find a true love is hence critically dependent on understanding absenteeism, that a great deal of affection is based on the paradoxical fact of less understanding.

Many Hong Kong girls anchor their criterion of love to money. But they should not be condemned merely on the ground of self-interest. Because things that invoke our promotion of self-interests are the ones that generate our desire of love. Therefore, love can be seen as a direction, not a place, and burns itself out with the attainment of its goal.

The problem in Hong Kong is that this ideal is being enforced to be a norm rather than a choice. Nevertheless, wealth can purchase the reality of love. It may be undesirable and less noble. Unfortunately, it is a fact.

W

On Consumerism

Originally published on the Pub which I am one of the contributors:

If the dominance of consumerism has been severely criticised, it is perhaps because consumption cannot be justified without need. Aside from its environmental issues, consumerism condemns us as mere robots, easily manipulated by advertisements on what we truly need. Shopping is, therefore, a secular sin, that fools us into thinking we need an excessive amount of ornaments and decorative items to exemplify our self-indulgence, a manifestation of what we want rather then what we need. It encourages temporary satisfactions. However, to be fully human, the anti-consumerist maintains, is to only buy what we need. Why would one need an expensive cardigan when a cheap one can equally serve the exact same function? Why should we follow the trend when we can have our own styles? After all, we all, in essence, should long to be admired for logically irreducible elements: intelligence, excellence, integrity, compassion etc. No matter how chic we can get, death will still come and haunt us, threatening to turn our worldly possessions into ashes and dust. Whatever arguments may be brought up against shopping without need, should we not allow shopping a part of our guilty pleasure in the private sphere of our heart?

If shopping has to be subject to rational scrutinisation, one may perhaps find its root in our rampant pecuniary culture, however, rather than accusing our economic system of the capitalistic formation of unnecessary desires, perhaps magazines are largely to blame. If magazines take up their part in triggering our commercial minds, it is because magazines have to make us unhappy. Flipping over pages of lifestyle magazines, how an ordinary unaided mind might be able to resist the seduction of the satanic genius of the editors.

Though a great many magazines on the surface may offer solution to the human conditions, though they may help us to discover ways to materially manifest certain good ideas of life, it only leaves us miserable in the end. In the clothes section, it reminds us of how many new garments have to be compensated for our wardrobes. In the decor section, it informs that our homes probably have no style. Lastly, in the cleansing, cosmetic products and perfume section, it enforces a message that we are far from being able to keep our skins in good conditions and may lead us to lose temper over a flask of limited edition perfume.

Therefore, magazines are not mere the gospels of what a good life means, but rather, they are instruments of psychoanalysis. Because the fact that they leave us miserable is only a reminder that we should suffer aesthetic analysis. Learning how many clothes are missing in our wardrobes and how many decorative items are missing in our homes attend to us the idea that perhaps our tastes have to be refined or even unlearnt and that our sense of fashion has to be sharpened in order to love life. These magazines invoke in us a succession of questions: why don't I have this particular handbag to harmonise my Anna Sui's cosmetic sets? Why am I unable to wear long loose shirts correctly over leggings? How can I neglect purple is the colour of this summer? Why am I ignorant of certain cleansing product that may neutralise the dermatological disaster on my face? Little wonder why our tastes deserve scrutiny.

However much pain these magazines have inflicted on us, looking over images of a world of perfect beings, we are still stripped of defences. We still find pleasure in contemplating pages of unhappiness in our beds alone and devising a detailed shopping list to make sure that we follow the "correct" social logic of tastes and styles. All this, unfortunately, is an illusion. The editors of these magazines have successfully fooled us into thinking we are actually the models ourselves, that once we put the clothes on, we will be under the illusion of possessing the stylishly posed figures who are modelling the summer collection and being photographed under big spot lights. Only until we return home, we will realise our lack of physical candour and therefore are liable to avoid the verdict of a full-length mirror. We mistakenly confuse the mirror with the lens skilfully placed in the sophisticated design of a camera and overestimate our own ability to see through the photographer's eyes.

The problem of these magazines inevitably leads to the problem of shopping. Shopping invites us to cast aside our reasoning abilities and favour a trust in mindless consumption. However, to condemn shopping is to fail to ascribe to shopping a proper value in our psychological make-up. Shopping is not just about buying what we need, but rather, it reflects a deep question of who we are, a question that might provoke us to search for the answer for a lifetime. The reason why we always shop for what we want instead of what we need is that we are often unsure who we are or what we want to become. Confused, we are then liable to adopt the suggestions made in magazines that provide a justifiable defence for our shopping rituals.

Our search for a decent camera, a pair of jeans, a Hermes handbag, or a pair of Martin Margeila's represents a process of soul-searching. Since we are unsure who we actually are, then we might as well figure that out by fitting in the current trend through the workings of shopping, anchoring ourselves to a more socially recognisable forms. It is also precisely because trends and styles endlessly fluctuate that allows us to abandon identities that may not inherently belong to our selves. Shopping, like science, is piecemeal. It leaves open for the possibility that we are susceptible to change and therefore open to revisions when necessary. It conspires to test itself against mental evidence. Which means our tendency to switch styles may suggest that our identities are always subject to change due to accumulation of new experience.

While we often deprecate the consumerist ethics, we ought not to neglect the unmentionable gravity of shopping in our philosophy of life. So rather than just buying what we need, we might as well buy what we want as long as it is financially affordable. Because shopping is not merely about consumption, but rather, it is a means to self-understanding. It allows us to see through the shop windows to a more enchanted world, a part of us that lies beneath our skin that remains undiscovered until a considerable amount of money is chiseled in our bank accounts. Shopping is no trivial task.

W

Should We Sleep With Someone On A First Date?

Originally published on the Pub which I am one of the contributors:


Driven by pecuniary interests, haste has become a hallmark of virtue while patience would count as a prelude to unproductivity. This culture of haste, unfortunately, has not just effected the world of business, but also integrated with our social life. If haste is considered a norm, it is perhaps because it allows us to get numerous things done in a day, and we may therefore cut away our unnecessary concentration on the minute details which may slow down the process to attain our goals.

If haste has become part of our daily habits, then it is not surprising to see how our romantic life becomes more like a fastfood meal rather than a decent supper at a restaurant. If a man wishes to take a lady out on a date, rather than pleasing her with humours, etiquette, and his intellectual candour, he only offers show off his wealth in front of the lady, while the lady in return harbouring a financial respect, evoking a sense of commercial optimism as well as romantic pessimism. What is worse is that his true aim is not amorous possession, but rather solely physical possession. How easy a sentiment that has been praised in literature, novel, poetry, and films is reduced to a mere mathematical formula. How easy money can savour a woman's body.

If the sole criterion of love is based on how good we perform in bed, it is because sex becomes a legitimate substitution for love. Sex has become an ends rather than a means, just like money has become another substitution for happiness. Traditionally, aside from prostitution, love was thought to go before sex. It was believed that it was not a good idea to engage in sex before the consideration of falling in love. Sex was therefore a supplement to love. That is why the first kiss and the foreplay were important. Because the performers of these acts wished not just to hold and savour the physical realm of the other halves, but also the spiritual realm, in order to make sure that they were sharing the bed with someone who could fathom their souls. However, in the world of twenty first century, where it conspires to kill our power of concentration, the young have become compulsive sex addicts. On the surface, they may all seem willing to risk everything to attain their beloveds, but what lies deep in their hearts is a night in bed generating pleasurable sensation of rubbing their receptors under their skins against each other.

But is sex really our ultimate desire? Are we forever condemned to follow a Darwinian approach to love? But this is an illusion of what we want to attain. The problem of this illusion lies not in the tolerance of easy sex, but rather in failing to entertain the benefits of delay. An easy access to a woman's body is precisely why it is most unlikely to encourage love. At one level, sex may grant us the most pleasurable sensation ever known, but at another level, it may fool us into thinking we have acquired what we truly want. Because the woman is unable to foster doubts in us. What is most attractive about a woman stems not from her submission to the dominance of men, but rather the difficulty of attaining her. If she is not as easy to possess as a prostitute who can be possessed by commercial means, then it suggests that there is something mysterious about her and makes allowance for us to perform a clear-eyed investigation on her.

Upon the interval of desire and gratification, it prompts us to study our beloved on a closer examination. We are allowed to study her tastes for dance and music, her opinions in politics and science, and her characters. Moreover, in the physical realm, we may be able to pay closer to attention to what initially attracts us the most. We could study his facial structures, her indentations, and the curves of her body which may enhance our appreciation and love for her. A prostitute, on the contrary, will sooner or later cease to generate desire in us, because she is always available, ready to reveal her naked truth, and gives us what we want to attain beforehand.

So why do we want sex on a first date? Though physical intimacy may put us in direct contact with the object of desired, it does not guarantee us intimacy of souls. If sex can substitute love and women fail to please us in beds, or vice versa, we may risk laying down judgements falsely on their characters only based on the sexual gratification we have received. We must therefore realise the limits of sexual contact and revise what possession truly means.

W

Should We Write?

Traditionally, books have been known as one of the most popular tools to transmit ideas to change lives and fill minds. Small wonder why the Bible and the Koran can appeal to a great majority of the population in the world. However, looking back to the early history, there existed a time when some of the greatest moral teachers had a distaste for books and took pleasure in the art of conversation. I have in mind Socrates, Jesus, and the Buddha. Why were they so reluctant to articulate their ideas across pages of blank sheets? If books are inferior to speeches, why would their disciples go against their teachings?

If these moral teachers found books offending, it was perhaps because the problem of books lies not in their inability to offer knowledge, but rather in its lack of responses. Unlike discussions and debates, books can only be accompanied by solitude that one can only contemplate pages of thought-provoking ideas in his bed alone. Discussions, on the other hand, are mutual. The rhythm of a conversation makes no allowance of dead periods, because the presence of our companion prompts us to offer a response, therefore making us more liable to suspect the value of silence. Even one of the greatest poets John Milton deprecates the value of writing,

"... many books
Wise men have said are wearisome; who reads
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not
A spirit or judgement equal or superior,
(And what he brings, what needs he elsewhere seek)
Uncertain and unsettled still remains,
Deep-versed in books and shallow in himself."

However paradoxical Milton appears, he conspires to cast aside our intellectual faith in books and favour a trust in conversation. Reading would become pointless if our minds fail to submit to the rigours of rational examination. He seems to suggest that a book, like religion, might eventually reveal itself as an authority, that it must be immune to challenges and criticisms, hence closing our minds off to new ideas and opinions.

Milton is not alone. The French philosopher and essayist Michel de Montaigne severely condemns writing as well:

"The most fruitful and natural exercise of the mind, in my opinion, is conversation; I find the use of it more sweet than of any other action of life; and for that reason it is that, if I were now compelled to choose, I should sooner, I think, consent to lose my sight, than my hearing and speech. The Athenians, and also the Romans, kept this exercise in great honour in their academies; the Italians retain some traces of it to this day, to their great advantage, as is manifest by the comparison of our understandings with theirs. The study of books is a languishing and feeble motion that heats not, whereas conversation teaches and exercises at once."

What Montaigne suggests is that books, unlike conversation, fail to exercise our minds. It deprives us of the ability to think and enforces us to take in whatever we read, removing us from the weight we necessarily confront during a conversation. Montaigne goes on further,

" and who can do nothing but by book, I hate it, if I dare to say so, worse than stupidity. In my country, and in my time, learning improves fortunes enough, but not minds; if it meet with those that are dull and heavy, it overcharges and suffocates them, leaving them a crude and undigested mass."

Books, according to Montaigne, belongs to the tradition of learning. It allows us to be able to recite verses of poetry and literature without being subject to rational scrutiny. It undermines our independence of thought and imaginative vision, inculcating in us a sense of obedience rather than a spirit of free thinking. Most authors are easily taken as objects of worship, rather than reserving our right to scrutinise what they say, we naively condemn our own intelligence and marvel at the difficult texts they are capable of delivering, falsely seeing them as hallmark of wisdom and excellence. Only through conversation, we are able to articulate sophisticated ideas in ordinary everyday language which allows us to offer criticisms and prompt others to give back direct responses.

Little wonder why teenagers, who thoroughly investigate Milton's The Lost Paradise and inherit the wisdom of Montaigne, refuse to read nowadays. It becomes obvious why Plato only agreed to write in the form of dialogues because it is only through dialogues that leave room for free enquiry and unbiased evaluation of evidence. Are we then to abandon the tradition of writing and diligently master the art of conversation? Does reading make us obedient drones rather than creative originals?

But Montaigne and Francis Bacon offered us a solution. They invented the form of essays to articulate what was previously thought unknown, difficult philosophical ideas, because essays aim at appealing to a wide range of readers in the most passable language. They allow us to expose to what is rigorously discussed in the academia and read it with fluidity and clarity. Moreover, essays also ward off all the unnecessary academic jargons which lay impassable to us. They mitigate the tension between writing and conversation and compensate what can only be originally achieved by conversation.

Another benefit of writing is that writing is largely based upon rewriting. It cuts away all the dead periods which occasionally happen in conversation. It gives us room for reorganisation, presenting our ideas in a coherent, logical manner, and articulating them in beautifully balanced phrases. Those who condemn writing may be due to their ignorance of the inevitable link of persuasiveness and beauty. One of the reasons of why most great quotes and poetries do not suffer loss of our memory is because these great masters compose them in such an aesthetic logic that pleases our minds. They are aware of the commonly neglected value of beauty. Logic and reason alone cannot convince our intelligent minds. It is through beauty that wisdom can penetrate through our souls and liberate us from the dullness and boredom of most intellectual arguments which might otherwise slip away from us easily. Moreover, writing does not suffer from the limitations of corrections and additions which one ought to make even in front of the most patient companion.

So why didn't Socrates, Jesus, and the Buddha write? Perhaps because they were aware of the insufficiency of writing. But writing should not be condemned merely because they didn't do so. Though conversation promotes active participation in rational enquiry and unbiased evaluation of evidence, writing allows a different way to present arguments which conversation is no match. For those who write, please write beautifully. As for readers, read not just with logic and reason, but also with an aesthetic eye.

W

How Should We Treat Our Guests?

Originally published on the Pub which I am one of the contributors:


Embroiled by excessive working hours and the necessity of moonlighting, it is no surprise to witness a great many Filipino and Indonesian maids ferry to Hong Kong for working opportunities. They seek to replace the traditional role of women and become masters of handling domestic affairs. If the customary female identity has not been offended, it is perhaps because the feminists have gained the upper hand and brainwashed modern women to become financially independent rather than submitting themselves to male dominance. How indefensible the traditional responsibility of women has become in front of a flock of Filipino and Indonesian maids.

Whatever much convenience these maids have brought us, there is one drawback. Rather than fulfilling our obsession with cleanliness and order, they threaten to undermine the virtue of hard work and inculcate in us a sense of laziness, rendering us liable to take everything for granted. What is worse is that they have a tendency to deprive us of the ability to be good hosts. Upon welcoming guests to our homes, instead of harbouring a respect and warmth for them, we command our maids with fluidity, as if slavery has been reinforced on legal grounds, to articulate from the most trivial art of serving drinks to the most annoying dish washing. How thoughtful of us, who are the masters of our homes, to treat our guests who offer us bottles of wine and flowers with our lack of hospitality.

A real story might help to emphasize my point. The Queen of England Elizabeth II, while having excessive numbers of maids on duty in the Windsor Palace, insists on welcoming her guests by herself rather than relying on her maids. She serves them drinks and supper, does the dishes, and finally makes tea for them all by herself. But why does she insist on doing these by herself instead of asking her maid to do them? Because the Queen herself believes it is a matter of etiquette.

The role of a master is to offer the possibly best hospitality to his guests. To ask his maid to perform all the tasks is to violate the identity of him being the master of his home. It not only reveals the fact that his guests do not deserve any respect, but it also condemns their presence as trivial that their visits cannot mean much to him. It robs his guests of dignity and self-respect in front of a maid who may silently ridicule and mock them over the collecting of the dishes and her puting them in a sink.

A good host should insist on his guests doing nothing but eating and drinking. When they offer to help, he should tell them, with a friendly yet masterly tone, to keep out of the kitchen area. Aside from this, he should tell his maid of her redundancy, to take the rest of the day off, and serve the guests at his best.

W