A Note For My Friends

This summer is coming to an end. My dear reader might wonder why this summer is worth an entry on this blog as there will be another summers in the ongoing years. However, this summer is different and of immense importance. The upcoming year will be the last year of my student life. That is to say, this is my last summer holidays. "Schooling is the happiest moment of one's life."- so at least I have been told. Therefore, this summer also marks the end of the happiest moment of my life.

Throughout all these years, I must myself admit I have not learnt a great deal from my teachers and the textbooks in school. But I have met great friends that have enriched my life. Many of my old time friends are regrettably now gone. Fortunately, I have met a great deal in my secondary school which I hope will be my lifelong friends. If they are not lifelong, they are still memorable for they enchanted the happiest moment of my life. That is what makes schooling important. It is important not because it instills countless useless knowledge into my mind, but because I have met some of the best companions in my life.

Our roads to future still remain uncertain. We do not know where we will be going. As time passes by, we may choose to separate or we may choose to treasure this friendship. But no one can say certainly where we will end up to be. After we step into the filthy world of business, we may choose to separate because of work or simply because you meet new people. We are stepping into a completely different world. Thank you, my friends, for being part of my life and for giving me my last wonderful summer. Our separation is undoubtedly sad but yet sadly beautiful. We should not only admire the beauty of the union of great friends but we should also admire the beauty of the separation of them though it moves us to tears. Because this moment is splendid. Our love of friendship is deeply connected over the vast ocean of anguish. It is what makes our friendship honourable. If we are not to experience this sort of loneliness, we would not know what friendship is all about.

My friends have done much good to me, but I am afraid I have no chance to return the favour. For this, I apologise.

For those who are tagged, you may not be my best friend, but you are tagged simply for being part of my wonderful summer. For all my best friends (who need not to mention), this is for you.

W

Today is the final day of my year 2.
This is one of the most fruitful years I have ever come across. I have witnessed the death of an acquainted one, worked in a prestigious company, worked hard and gained agreeable result, attempted competitions and got recognized, met reliable friends and read a lot of books that I please.
All of them mean so much to me. But among all, there are a few I wish to add some words so I will never forget these events.
My grandpa passed away this year. I have never been a close grandson to him. But still, I can still recall the last time I saw him.
It was a hot Saturday. Cars were drifting outside the hospital, not carrying patients, but just drifting. I was told that my grandpa had about only 2 months left that he wanted to see me so much. We entered the hospital. It was quiet and still that I could even hear the squeaky sounds caused by some old beds. The pace of time was quite different from outside. The slowness was heavy. Behind the door, it was a brightly lit room, and there lied my grandpa. He raised his eyebrows when he saw me.
To him, I was a different person. I grew and changed so much that he could barely recognize me. We both forgot when the last time we met was. In my memory, my grandpa served in the military and he was a typical military man. He had a loud voice and a passionate persona. He liked drinking, gambling and making jokes. To him, I was a little quiet boy who just dares to follow my mom and dad and utter no voice. But what we saw were different. He was an exhausted, worn-out patient lying on bed, and I looked much more mature.
My grandpa kept looking at me and tried even not to blink. He knew this may well be the last time he could see me. He asked me to walk closer and held my hand very tightly as if it was a rope hanging over a cliff. His eyes were red and I can see tears running inside. He drew a breath and told me he was so happy to see me and found that I grew more mature. Maybe it is one of human’s gifts that we can understand what others feel. I felt, underneath his words, there were regrets and sadness; he was so sad that he may not be able to see me anymore.
His hands were very dry, probably due to the effects of his cancer medicine. However, the wrinkles on his face didn’t erase his benevolence from me. I wanted to tell him although I was not a close grandson to him; I have always found him friendly and respectable. Owing to the tension in the air, I did not articulate my mind. I, instead, looked at him in his eyes and tried to tell him. 2 months later, he passed away. My uncle told me that, during the very last syllable of his life was played, he was unable to breath and certified death after 2 hours of operation.
Losing an important relative’s feeling is the same as the emptiness that looms after a blissful night. The difference is, your relative is gone forever.
My job in the bank is a tough one, but it made me a better man. There were elites from top universities around the world and there were very rich people. Most of them worked to their fullest capacity to keep the wheels of the bank turning. They know themselves are of zero value to the bank. Their boss can fire them and find a better replacement in one day. The only reason that drives them to work is life itself. Only through suffering can they find their own existence and taste the sweets of joy. There is no such thing as “I can no longer stand” in there. Everyone is expected to be doing things best. After the fall of Lehman, people came and left. The worries and frustrations on their faces can be felt easily. Maybe that is because to some of them this is the biggest failure and crash in their life so far.
Today’s exam is a smooth one. After I left the centre, I felt empty. It is as if going up the stairways from your room in the darkness and to think that there is one more step of what it really hasn’t. Your foot is going for the air and there is a moment of surprise. The moment is prolonged. This year is a joyful one. But it ended, despite everything, it ended. The next year is going to be a tough one. Since I will have to start hunting jobs, work even harder and probably face more pressure. Still, as my best friend told me, the main purpose of life is to suffer. There is no reason that I should be spared. Life goes on.

Mirror

My best friend Bill told me that he felt himself a stranger when he looked in the mirror the other day. Have any of you, dear reader, had this strange feeling? What do you see when you look in the mirror? Are you proud of your own beauty or do you feel self-pity of your appearance? Is fear aroused in you when you look in the mirror as you age? Have you ever endeavoured to see through your own eyes so you can directly interact with your soul? Mirror, as an object which evokes our self-awareness, inspires and delights us. It provokes our enquiry of the limit of self-understanding.

Have you ever tried to glanced beyond the stars to imagine what it is like? Have you ever taken your time out to appreciate the scenery of the sky that was lit up by the splendour of the moon and twinkling little stars? Are you in awe of the splendid beauty of it? I hope you are. A comet travels across the sky. Is it beyond our ability capture it or our ability to slow down is already conquered by the virtue of readiness? A mirror produces the same effect within us. Only when we look into a mirror, we realise that time always quietly slips away. It renders us the habit of contemplation of life. After all these years, in retrospect, what do you actually learn? Do you learn to avoid mistakes and mend your characters through experience or do you just keep repeating the same mistakes and confirming your own prejudices? Are you now able to penetrate through your soul to understand who you really are? Unfortunately, humans are prejudiced. We are naturally egocentric. We always overestimate ourselves because we cannot be completely unbiased of ourselves. That is why we come to depend upon our friends, our family, and romantic partners. However, this is not perfect. They are biased too. They cannot sympathise the melancholy within you. They cannot dig up your loneliest loneliness which is concentrated upon your individual soul day and night. There is always your unconscious self concealed from the world which only at times talks to you.

Sometimes I ponder upon the thought whether keeping a psychological distance from others is more desirable. Certain aspects of my personality has to be kept mysterious forever so as to make myself an interesting person. If this is true, how can we understand ourselves? Should we just let our arrogance preside over our reason or is it a paradox that is destined not to be solved? Should reality always be cruel to taunt us with our innate inability to fathom our soul?

Nevertheless, I have learnt one thing. Suffering makes my life fruitful. It makes me conscious of my own self. Through the experience of the deepest pessimistic moods, I find self-realisation. I should not only enjoy what friendship, parental affection, romantic love, and compassion has to offer in a good life, but I should also appreciate the darkest despair, the spectacle of melancholy, the wickedness of contempt, and the fear of frustration. Only through these things, we are to enjoy the greatest things that life has to offer. We must not long for perfection. We need to understand that perfection can only be secured through imperfection. We should not appreciate the beauty of a full moon, but we should be able to perceive the beauty of a moon partially covered with clouds. We should not be in awe of the beauty of flower blossom, but we should be deeply moved to tears by the beauty when flowers wither. We do not admire the beauty of green leaves in spring, but we should appreciate the beauty of loneliness of the leaves falling in autumn. Because this is what life is all about. A perfect life breeds boredom. A life with defects makes us interesting so we can strive towards our goals and dreams. This view is perhaps unduly pessimistic but it takes us a step further to understanding ourselves. We are not perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. Defects in our characters render us the longing of perfection. Therefore, let us rejoice the beauty of loneliness and grievance. However sad it is, if we look closer, we will find that it is not only sad, but it is sadly beautiful. Our purpose of life is not to despise sadness, but on the contrary, we make it a work of art.

W

Sudden reflection on the unbearable lightness of being

Sudden reflection on the unbearable lightness of being
Chasing the stars, dodging the moon, I have been working to my fullest faculty to ensure my valuable ones, and children, if there will be any, can lead a better life, a life that they can be truly alive. But my true self has long escaped me.
Still, sometimes I do feel the deep torment of my soul struggling desperately to escape its mortal coil. I, like Franz in the epic book, is an extremist, if not an idealist. The only sense of release can only be captured through the asymmetrical moment of death. Every progress I have been making seem only contributes to the annihilation. This present complaint means nothing but the grievance over the irreconcilable nature of life; I have long let circumstances dictate and learnt used to it. But as I am only to live once this life, assuming there is no demon magic, I do feel haunting of weightless life creeping up. As in the end, every value ceases to exist then every effort at the moment is therefore weightless as well.
"How can life ever be a good teacher if there is only one of them to be lived? How can one perform life when the dress rehearsal for life is life?"
The long pause from writing has rendered my ability to write obsolete.

How Should We Live?

As long as we get intellectually lazy, we have to latch onto a stronger person to survive. Some appeal to authority of religions, some philosophy, and some parents. Most of us need a guidebook to look for instructions of how we should act. Free will is no use in the Age of Faith. Out of all kinds of authorities, I like to appeal to the majority for most kinds of authorities always have to submit to the majority. What is good for the majority must also be good for us. If one should like to rebel against the tyranny of majority, being a social outcast or being labelled as eccentric is an unquestionable consequence.

What is so good about the majority? They have helped decide matters for us even since we were children. Ever since we were born, they have decided what religion and moral values could make us a desirable being. In the days of our childhood, we were brought up to condemn sex because it is filthy. The act of masturbation is utterly wicked. A man full of sexual thoughts should be sinned with a morbid sense of guilt. Most importantly, it violates one of the Ten Commandments.

And for surely, smoking is also a bad habit because it is harmful to your health. One must be delusional to think that having a cigarette in your hand can make you look stylish and attract the opposite sex. It would also be foolish to think that nicotine can help you relieve stress but only you will eventually realise that such chemical dictates your free will.

In the matters of romantic love, you can also witness that the love offered by the majority is immense. They tell us, with profound knowledge and wisdom, what we must do to maintain a happy relationship. The most popular of all is that we should be faithful to one and only one romantic partner. One is thought abhorrent if he is even physiologically incapable of fidelity. When it comes to marriage, we must offer the most precious diamond rings to show how much we love our romantic partners.

Filial piety is also an issue. A bad child you are if you disrespect your parents. You should bear in mind that what they tell you must always be the absolute truth. Your disagreement with them is the first sign of your immaturity. They determine what you should study in school to ensure that you have a promising career. They dictate your interests as well. Parent must force their children to learn a certain type of musical instrument because it can enhance their aesthetic sensibility. They also set up timetable for their children to make sure that they will read at a certain time of the day because illiteracy is bad. If the children happen to dislike reading, physical punishment is unavoidable. My dear reader might ask, "why do they have the right to determine what their children should like?" No one, I should reply, has more right than them because they have way more life experience than their children regardless of what they derive from experience is the confirmation of their own prejudices. The world does not need new blood. New blood deplored, the elders self-righteous.

Collective taste in arts is desirable. In the spectacle of fashion, we ought to always follow the trend. If we happen to wear something contrary to the popular trend, people will laugh at us with a despicable eye. Women should purchase expensive handbags so they will not lose face in the presence of her colleagues and friends. If a man happens to appreciate or to be touched by the beauty of a ballet dance, he must be thought feminine and weak. More importantly, this is the implication of being homosexual. If he is moved to tears by the beauty of a painting, he must be pretentious. When he freely expresses his high opinion of the painting, he should be accused of being pedantic. If we do not follow the opinion of food critics of how and what we should eat, we are more likely to have bad taste.

Speaking of collectivity, the aspect of emotions must not be left out. We should, by observing the people around us, praise vulgarity and despise delicacy. Following what I have mentioned in the last paragraph, one can deduce the conclusion easily that when a man is touched by a film or a piece of exquisite music, he is weak and feminine. But a man should uphold the characteristics which he has been instilled into his mind since childhood: he must appear strong and must be prone to emotionless. One is thought weird when he expresses his love for his lover by means of poetry or a well-written love letter. The prevalence of technology urges us to forgo traditions and express these feelings through texting messages or instant messengers. And certainly, sex is now the ultimate substitution for love. We no longer need to distinguish sex from love for they are essentially the same thing. Men do not have to learn how to please a lady with humour and talents, but only how good they perform in bed. The gospel of modernity teaches us that what matters is the resulting product, not the style displayed during its production. Men no longer have to date women. They meet each other for sex. If they cannot attain what they wish for, the relationship is no longer worthwhile to pursue. We no longer show sympathy for the poor and sick because this is the outcome of Social Darwinism, the survival of the fittest. Being poor and sick is the sign of weakness and must therefore be eliminated.

The list can go on endlessly and I do not wish to go into it with details. Having come to the end of this entry, can you, dear reader, lay your hands on your heart to acknowledge that the majority are still bad? They are like our mother nature, with immense love and care, telling us how to behave in a society to avoid conflicts and human folly. If I were not to study the gospel of modernity, I would have committed the exact opposite of the good that I thought they were. And I know that I should be deeply thankful. If you wish to be loved by your neighbours and regarded as a good citizen, here is my advice: avoid expressing your own opinions instead of those of your boss and your parents, that is to say, you should be a slave; also do not endeavour to realise the ends which you yourself think good; develop a decent friendship with millionaires and influential men; find a lady who is only sexy enough only for you to have sex with, and, keep in mind, the term of "making love" does not apply here, and feel free to abandon her after your sexual pleasure is satisfied. Do all these, and the people around shall have a high opinion of you. In this case, you will become a role model.

This is sound advice and for the first time (Pity me), I have seen the good of public opinion. But, for my part, I should like to attempt suicide.

W

Is Reason "Cold"?

People are of many kinds. Some are rational and some emotional. Some are intelligent and some stupid. Some are ordinary and some fill lives and change minds. Unfortunately, a great many of them belong to the realm of stupidity and ignorance. They prefer the company of power and vanity. Their aims of life become so practical that they can only find themselves in endless fulfilment of worldly possessions. As time goes on, they are likely to detach themselves from the ability to reason because they have no time for the noble activity of thinking. Gone are the age of Renaissance and the age of Enlightenment. A great many people have recently been in the habit of condemning reason as "cold". Rational men are accused of being cold-blooded and emotionally insensible. They say rational men over-estimate the part of reason which is capable of playing and downplay the importance of emotions. The Romantic movement, though perhaps in a less noble form, has made a spectacular comeback. The sentiment of la sensibilite dictates the modern era. This error, I think, comes from the fact that they are in complete muddle of what the word "reason" actually means.

Reason has a perfectly clear and precise meaning. It allows you to see the choice of right means of an end that you wish to achieve. It does not dictate the ends. Take, for instance, the attempt to suicide. The ability to reason allows you to see the pros and cons of suicide and perhaps what sort of methods, from the most vulgar of hanging to the noblest Seppuku, that you wish to employ. However, it does not decide what end you wish to pursue. This is the part where passion comes into play. In order to attempt suicide successfully, passion is a decisive factor. One must have the passion which springs from the indignation and the ugliness of the world to put your wish into action. This is analogy which is similar to that of science and philosophy. A great deal of knowledge that you obtain from science does not decide what end you want to achieve. You need to rely on philosophy to offer you value judgement to decide how to put your knowledge into good use. Reason does not despise emotions, but acknowledges them as essential ingredients to make our lives better.

Reason also helps us develop emotional sensibility. By emotional sensibility, I do not mean we should liberate our emotions without self-control. I do not think it a good thing to be in the state of extremely insane excitement like the romantic revolutionaries which they would like to have the heads of aristocrats and members of royal family cut off. This usually leads to an undesirable consequence which is directly opposite to what they intend. But I do mean that by the ability to reason, we should be able to have greater emotional depth which equips us with the capacity to feel more deeply about our dark moods and optimistic moods than any other man who has attached little importance to reason and exercise them appropriately. But how does reason do this? Ethics offers one of the best examples. Our desires, like our senses, are primarily self-centred. Our egocentric character of desires always interferes with our ethics. Most of our moral values, if not all, appeal to intuitions rather than reason. Take, for instance, the objection to homicide. The objection to homicide was inspired by superstition. It was originally based upon the ritual pollution caused by the blood of the victims, but the fact is that such intuition was triggered by the contagion system in our brain favoured by natural selection. Let me take another example. Nudity in public is condemned. It is condemned not because a nude body offends our aesthetic sensibility to the eye, but because it is considered a sin according to the Christian tradition (at least to the West) as Adam and Eve are unable to resist the seduction of fruit offered by a snake. Of course, the fruit is a symbol of sex. As soon as they discover the pleasure of sex, they are ashamed of their nakedness of their bodies because sex is thought wicked. Many things are thought immoral because they offend our ideological familiarity and cause a rupture to our emotional stability. It is very curious in our human nature that we love regularities and contempt change. This curious pattern of thought also became the foundation of Platonic philosophy as a essential quality of his Utopia. Emotions have determined many of our moral values. Reason seems not to play any part in ethics. That is also precisely the reason why we need reason. Extreme emotions, if allow in one direction, will become all-pervasive. Therefore, we must need reason to constraint our emotions and practice them appropriately.

Moreover, reason has a constructive aspect to emotions. It helps develop impersonal feelings. I am speaking of impersonal feelings as feelings not only concern my own, but the feelings that extend to the wider public such as compassion and benevolence. We should not admire a man who only care only about his own dissatisfaction of hunger. On the contrary, we should admire a man who from his own need of food is led to the general sympathy of the hunger. We should not admire a man who is only kind and generous to his friends, lovers, and family. On the contrary, we should admire a man who from his need of friendly feelings from strangers is led to the general love to the mankind. I am not implying reason generates these feelings, but it helps construct them by minimising emotions that are an obstacle to well-being such as hatred, fear, and envy. However, that is not to say that reason kills all the deeper emotions which it does not condemn. In parental affection, in romantic love, in friendship, in benevolence, in the devotion to science and art, there is nothing that reason should wish to diminish. A rational man will be glad that he feels them and he will do nothing to lessen these emotions because they are parts of the good life. A man who can feel these emotions can contemplate the world more freely because his emotions are more delicate and sophisticated. In the spectacle of romantic love, he will feel the intensity of love offered by his romantic partner and treasure it because he is aware he does nothing to deserve such love, however hard that love is to be fathomed, but simply a consequence of romantic fatalism. In his heart, he shall be deeply thankful of the spectacle of joy that life has to offer. In the aspect of art, he is more able to be moved by the beauty and subtlety of a painting to tears not because the artist paints what he sees, but because the artist paints what he actually feels. When he listens to Beethoven music, he will consider it an aesthetic delight to the ear, and he will be touched by the intellectual and emotional depth that a piece of exquisite music wishes to deliver.

Reason is by no means cold. It does not condemn emotions that are parts of the good life. It only safeguards against emotions that prevent us from realising the ends of life we wish to pursue. It is an essential quality for integral harmony. In the spectacle of joy, you can feel what love can offer. And in the midst of grievance, you can feel disgust, contempt, despair, loneliness, and melancholy. It is these things that enable you to contemplate the world from a wider horizon and generate an universalising feeling upon the human race. It is also these things from which progress, artistic inspirations, and romance spring. Until our feelings become more refined, the world will be rendered dull and vulgar.

"I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly." - Michel de Montaigne

W