A Brief but important update

First and for all, i gotta announce this:

UN has officially declared that 30th december is Cucumber Day, starting from next year onwards. This is in order to pay respect to Miss Cucumber (a.k.a. Miss Chin Xin-Ci) who was born on 30th december, 1986. She has managed to survive in an urban city by just eating a cucumber per meal for a month, continuously. UN committee was ultimately impressed by this fact and they decide to name december 30th as Cucumber Day in order to tell people how important the will of survival, and not least, cucumber is.

Let's remember this day, forever and ever.

Tolerance; Being sorry; Tranquility

Conflict is inevitably encountered in a place where u live with ppl in the same space, especially the same room. There, of course, had been harsh ones and had been soft ones, the thing i keep wondering about from day one till now is not about how to avoid one. You never could avoid one. That's the iron fact.

So the main point is about resolving one. Since it's already inevitable, the thing is how we extinguish the sparks before the fire actually bursts into evil flames that will eventually engulf everyone. Of course, the very first thing i could think of is: tolerance.

But then, is tolerance all to it? or in other words, does tolerance really work?

No it didn't. for my case that is. I found out that the more i tolerate, the more the anger builds up. Because i have some principle lines which i myself couldn't even cross over it. It's not about me being stubborn, to be honest. Sometimes i just couldn't see it happen. The attitude of other ppl doing it, and provoking it by doing it again intentionally really burn your eyes out. You feel like strangling them but you just withstand the anger. As i put it, i store the anger in an unknown memory space which i tot i could delete it subconsciously. But what happened in the end was accumulation of galleons of fuel which is able to tear down at least twenty warehouses. Tolerance is not the key. It rots me out from the inside. I felt that I am more and more devilish each day, with the anger and conflict kept reigning in me everytime a piece of others' doing invoke it.

So, confrontation? Well certainly it doesn't work. Not that it won't, just that different ppl need you to think of different approach. that's really troublesome. because when you think of diff approaches, you HAVE to think from various viewpoints, including putting yourself in the others' shoes. When you're on fire, don't tell me you could do that objectively. No one could. Therefore there's more than 50% chance that a confrontation will induce a heated argument and worst-to-worst case, a tragedy of brutal fight or body contact. That, is unquestionably out of the way.

Therefore I had been wondering this far: what do you do when you're dealing with ppl who are harsh and stubborn when it comes to conflict? You tolerate, accumulate the fire and then you burst into flame? you talk to that stubborn guy, you guys couldn't agree with each other, and then comes to body contact (verbal abuse)? you let him win, and you yourself feel defeated and not yourself for a few days?

For this semester, i learned a lot from my courses. Now i m learning bout dealing with conflicts, psychologically i mean. well then, when i m hard-headed and stubborn, i found that things couldn't go straight. and then when i m soft and tolerable, ppl kept taking advantage of you until you die of the power of giving more. To find the line in between, sorry...i couldn't do it. at least not me. Either way, when i m about to reach the extreme, i will pull myself back, which in the end it hurts me inside, deeply. but i guess i m getting the rhythm of it now, slowly, slowly.

maybe it's not about tolerance, and it's not about getting myself right or getting others right. and it's not about being stubborn, or being soft. and it's not about being in between or neutral. it's about being wise.

some people just couldn't change. or they're changing---slowly---just that now they're not in sync with your mode of principle. well, you guys probably say, of course. one thing funny is, there're tonnes of 'of course' facts around us which we already know, yet we're not wise enough to understand it. That's why the simplest wisdom always come with the simple facts. what to do when u meet a hard person that you couldn't possibly agree with? be wise. don't even start the conflict. and don't get emotionally attached because that person maybe didn't even care. Not that he doesn't, it's that he doesn't even know of the principle you hold, and that principle is something he doesn't even think of his whole life. well you see, for us, when we accidentally hit someone, we will feel really sorry bout it, and then you try to compensate the hurt one by apologizing or provide care. but you see, today i m elbowed, which resulted in my spectacle stand jabbing into my right eye. he doesn't even say 'sorry' at all. he looked at you, see that you're not blind, then he feels morally okay. you might say: wah, fuck man, this guy sucks. but then, to think over it, he doesn't feel sorry bout what he did because in his own definition, there's no such thing as apologizing when something like that happened. The degree of 'being sorry' is different, and the 'principle lines' also differ for different people. One old fact: you couldn't satisfy everyone. Rephrasing it: you couldn't expect everyone to satisfy you. It just won't happen.

therefore the thing is not to tolerate. It's all about our mind. Sit down, reflect on it. like what i m doing now by writing this blog. since the person didn't even care bout it, why you do? well, at least i can smile over it d. we live by our own principle, but not by superimposing our principles on others. being wise is about letting it go. To let it go is to think over the event itself. who would care bout one little conflict 1000 years later? you see, we might die one day without even knowing when we will. maybe the next minute, maybe next year, maybe 60 years later. were i to keep this anger inside my soul till the very day i die? it occupies space, memory and emotion. someday we will become a serial killer if we continue to be like that.

finally, i m able to be feel contented. self-satisfaction is all to it. live by your own principle, let everything go after thinking over it. people don't invite you to something, then? you will die? or, you feel bad for a few days? ppl dun agree with you, verbally abuse you, then you retaliate, u guys haf a fight, then you hafta think of a way to dispose your anger. whoa man that take days. it just didn't worth the effort and time. i find it funny that i can let ppl make fun of me, even about my death but when i make fun of that person, he just will attack you over and over again. so the bottom line is: don't raise a topic without thinking bout what will others will do to you.

i guess i decided to keep it this way: 1) less involvement when sensing something is wrong with a conversation (smell of the sparks). 2) withdrawal of verbal attack on other people from the back. 3) listen, and talk only when i need to. 4) smile it off when feeling not straight because sooner or later you hafta smile it off too. 5) self-discipline.

i think the thing is to detach myself from the surrounding. i am more and more expert in doing this lately. when i detach, it is as if everything happening around me doesn't haf an effect on me anymore. not that i dun care, but just that some stuff has its effect wear off because it doesn't mean something tht cibai to you again. everything around me is moving in slow motion, and in an extremely tranquil pace. such a comfortable mode i could switch to. then things will become clear. living becomes something natural again.

life is about being myself, naturally and peacefully in the mind. reflection brings improvement. at least today i know that what i do will provoke ppl. next time, i won't do it again. smile it off, man, smile it off. a tranquil mind is the healthiest solution:

be wise but not arrogant;
let it go after reflecting but not to tolerate;
smile it off but not to fake one which is just to provoke someone even more;
keep quiet but not when you're in dire situation to fight back;
live by own principle but always think of the consequence of your doing;
detach but not to be irreponsible.


Alden Nowlan: the day the child forgives himself, he becomes wise.

Senses

Tomorrow, or, to be more precise, in the next 14 hours i gonna face two exams and i haf one assignment due which i only barely halfway through. I know i shouldn't be here, but i think if i dun type sth out here, i might lose sth more important in my life.

Stretched, that's the only word I can think about being in HKUST. You never get enough sleep because there're always unfinished assignments and quizzes. Well, at start, I was thinking about working till my bones break to maintain the scholarship in a relatively very tough place here [imagine competing with Chinese and local HK chinese], but then, after living here in HK, the so-called metropolitan city for such a long extent of time, I started to realize sth: everyone here works till they die, and they don't even know why they're living. Or, they don't even know they're breathing every moment.

Ask any teenager in HK around me. Ask them: What do you know about suffocation?
Answer: What? Don't waste your time on that.

Question: What is the meaning of life?
Answer: Hahahahahaha...why're you asking that? Are you serious? (repeat the loop till it goes to infinity)

Question: What happened in Lebanon a few months back? Do you know that Israel is signing a peace treaties with Palestine?
Answer: .......(look away, ignore you completely after hearing the word 'Lebanon'.

They just don't care. You talk about what the local HK stars are doing lately, they know it instantly, by heart. They're even better than the paparazzi. Take my word for that. Something is dangerously amiss here. In a city full of pride and serious lack of conscience to care about others and events happening outside HK, I feel helpless. There're thousands other people outside HK, facing different problems, having cultural and religion clashes here and there, and they care NOTHING about it. Then arise the question: what's the point they're studying in a good university for? a better career?

And i ask myself: Do i compete with these ppl until i lose my vision of myself? Is this why i go to university?

You own urself a first class honest and scholarship, a good job, then you work days and nights until u dun haf any strength to continue working. You retire, then you started to stay in front of television, living your life as a legal couch potato. Is that what i want?

If study is about career, wealth, status, then i think i'm not gonna give it a fuck. I said, c'mon man, what's the point? What do I really learn? The purpose in life is what we're really looking for. You see, in HK there's sth really stupid going on every day. There're christians trying to get ur contacts, and then they will call u furiously, asking u to go their churches by all means possible. God gives u the light, God gives you the comfort, God gives you the answer to your question of being a typical 'zombie' in a metropolitan city. What's the fucking lie? you baptize, then they go away. You're all by yourself, discovering God on your own. Well, I don't give a shit. To hell with these God stuff. Religion is only a false light. You thought you are saved, but then when you are alone, you did not dive into your own heart seeking for solutions and answers. Instead, everything is referred to as God's doings. Bullshit. In big city like HK, where pressure and sleeplessness squeezes everyone into emptiness, more ppl fall into these kinda false light. They fall, and then they forget who they are. They don't even know how to find their own solutions. Everything is a 'blessing'. An infinite loop, which recursively repeated until every generation in the coming future completely loses the ability to think. Chinese are pathetic. Hong Kongers are pathetic. One thing about Chinese from China and Hong Kong is, they always look for a model answer, an absolute solution, a definite answer. This drives me crazy. A race lacks of the ability to rethink ideologies and challenge the thinkings around them. I wonder, if Hitler were to command China's army, I'm sure in 10 years time back in 1941, Hitler would have grasped the whole Europe and Asia under his tyranny. (if America were not to interfere, that is)

I'm totally ashamed of being a chinese. I really am. Back in Malaysia, things aren't that different either. The generation after mine are getting more and more ignorant of the world they live in and they stop asking the big questions about life. I am growing tired of being able to find someone younger who could tell me objectively what he thought about life without any arrogance implied. Discussion about life and thinkings have been deemed as extreme stupidity and waste of time. Standing in the middle of Mongkok a month ago where thousands of thousands of people walk aimlessly, shoulders touching shoulders, I once thought: what has the people in big cities become? Is this supposed to be 'normal'?

But then, this makes it all clear. In the next century machines will definitely take over human race, because a lot of people among us are losing the ability to think. One day, when machines start to tell every newly born human that machines are the God in bible, or in Quran, i guess, nobody will object it. Jesus will turn into an icon of super AI created by machines to walk through time tunnel to go the past to save human race. The staff Moses used to part the sea is nothing but a strong magnetic divider. Judgment day is already over. 'God' decided to take over the human race once in for all, sending his 'angels' (machines) down to earth to teach us about how to live a peaceful and happy life.

Sitting in front of one of the desk in HKUST's dorm, I look out of the window beside me. Tomorrow I gonna have two quizzes, one assignment, and one lab. So? So what? I look out of the window, I see thousands of still-awake chinese [from China and local HK] flipping their books furiously at 3 am in the morning, slowly march themselves towards the realm of machines. Once, religions dominize our thinkings. Finally when we're able to question and overcome it, the coming generations are slowly being taken over by the domination of machines.

I pray for my own senses to spring alive every moment I live. I feel alive when I know I am still able to think, to reflect and to judge objectively. Tonight, I know, finally, what it means to be a human.

Amen.