expectant monday 30th april 2007

its a rare monday that i am like this, at home.. haaarh... sweet home. yeah.

and this morning i woke up realising that i've had blessed friends almost everywhere i've gone to in me life. i've always been surrounded by people i can sincerely call pals, even in NS, even in camp, so here's something i can thank God for everytime.

last night i felt really lonely again, but excited as well. excited because i've had a new buzz of ideas, lonely, because there's no one for me to share the buzz with, not even with friends. because i'm trying to push the boundaries of my thoughts again, and thoughts isn't something easily transmittable by words... i guess its my own bloody fault for staying in one corner doing nearly undecipherable things. arh well. you win some, you lose some...

29th april 2007 - a really lazy sunday

i originally intended to go out and buy a book, but then again, it was a lazy sunday to sleep in.

i woke up early in the morning because of diarrhoea, and i went back to sleep, feeling tired because of the diarrhoea. so i started the day really late, at 11. by the time i woke up, it was lunch already. my big sis family came, and i used the com till 3, only to take a nap, woke up, and then, it was dinnertime.

and the house was noisy today, with so many people and with the little kid around. and my mum's face was a blessed joy today, and its so joyful that it makes me want to cry, because i know my mum is really that happy.

i have an abundant family. i'm alright in so many ways... arh well. feel so blessed. thank God for me family, even though some times it feels otherwise. arh well...

in a separate line of thought...

now i come to see a dangerous effect of going to some churches. you are being bombarded by the same messages, hammered down your throat, and you become pressured to believe. you are told that everything said is true, and told not to question them. hmm... indoctrination, and then, not being told to question, having your thoughts controlled - sounds like brainwashing to me. people can't wake up from these constructions, because they are told not to wake up from them. so what the... now i know clearer why i sometimes dread going to churches. was this how hitler won over the german people?

a little day out 28th april 2007

today i went out with a couple of people. and then there was the usual gossip, of the unpleasant experience we had with others... backstabbing. but we all keep it to ourselves, among a treasured few. and i'm like... i'm at the centre, i'm an immense node joining many clusters of nodes. i guess it reaffirms of what my life has been - being a central of node of many clusters. do i really keep things together? i really wonder. maybe i don't. but i feel i'm in a privileged position that few are in. i listen to people, people listen to me. i guess thats enough. arh well.. cool.

Striving to love, and loving perfectly. 28th april 2007

Here is a little note of a letter that i sent to my wonderful friends...

Hello!

These days I've been thinking about the nature of love. I'm like constantly with my NS pals, and I'm like wondering you know, how much of a brother we all were to each other in reality. And I realised that there isn't a genuine brotherhood, even though we are like together close to 24/5, and we share a lot of experiences, we suffer together and all, but at the end of the 2 years, we will only have the experiences that connect to each other, and experiences and memories are imperfect strings - ultimately they fade away. I'm thinking that after 2 years, we won't really see much of each other, maybe we'll get together as each of us gets married further on into the future. It led me to think about the nature of love, about what constitutes love...

Here's how it goes...

We are in a way, constantly striving for that perfect love. Yes, the perfect love is that love that God has for us. We are always learning how to love in His way - how to love perfectly. We are always learning how to love perfectly, in loving God, and in loving people. We know where our priorities lie, but we do know that when we start learning how to love God perfectly, we will in time, also learn how to love people perfectly. However, we will always fail, but we will always try. In this sense, the learning never stops. It is a lesson that we learn from the first day that we accept Christ.

We realise that human love is imperfect. There will always be a self-centred component about it - that selfish component that considers it too much, too painful in loving others. I've always wondered what does a true friendship constitute. What makes a fairweather friend, what makes a true friend. And I'm slowly learning that a true friend rebukes you when you do something wrong, wrong not just in the way of doing things, but in the ethical sense, when you go astray from your path that you should walk on. Because a true friend loves you so, that the friend will not bear to see you go wrong. And when we are with others, when we are with our so-called friends, are we really being friends? Do we keep silent when we know something is wrong? Or do we unconcerned about what goes on in their private lives? I think that most of the times, people want to construct a facade of normalcy - they create for themselves and illusion that all is well in their lives, that they don't need to correct anything in their lives. It will be painful to tear down those beautiful illusions, but sooner or later, it will have to be done anyway. I hope that in that kind of circumstance, that your genuine love will show and repair and rebuild their lives... because its what we simply have to do, that we love God, and we love them. And in truly loving people, we first love God, let Him rebuild and repair all that is wrong in our lives, and then we go on, to repair and rebuild the lives of others.

We know for a fact that human love is imperfect, that it will fail one way or another. The question is not whether we expect it to fail or not, but what we do when it fails. That is why we seek His divine love, because His love never fails. In seeking His love, it changes our perspective of loving others. It no longer becomes how much we love each other, but how much we love God together. I guess this part is more about romantic love, and like, I'll just stop here, because I only have the most vague ideas of what I'm talking about. In putting that centre of love away from ourselves, I think we will truly be able to love God and others all the more.

long long week. 27th april 2007

its been a long week, and i can tell you why. my platoon just became the most experienced - in army slang, old bird, in hokkien - in terms of standby activation. arh well. and one standby takes the whole afternoon away. arh well. had one on monday, then another on wednesday. and then on thursday we went for combat shoot, and today was finally a day of peace. not even drawing arms! hoorah! i now remember! on tuesday yet some unintelligent engineer formation anniversary. when they unveiled what they had, i felt so redundant. so, they already have a mine clearing vehicle.. then why do they still need us for? i guess vehicles are more expensive than man, i suppose... one of the numerous contradictions... 'we value man, but we also value our machines'

i listened to that very nice song by the Corrs - 'we are so young now, we are, so young, so young now...' sitting in the bunk with some good pals around, and just listening, well, army guys don't shed tears, right? but there i was, close to shedding tears. i'm thinking, that the most carefree, days of freedom are already gone from me, and the only days that are left will soon be filled with increasing responsibility and greater burden. but i guess its inevitable. and on and on... the summer of our youth, it is still here though fading fast everyday. and then i'm suddenly thinking, hey, although the pals in NS are close and personal, there isn't a deep genuine love. we all live our own lives quite separate from others - there is a shell that we maintain with others. but if we were to be genuine brothers, then we should be open to one another in our hearts. but of course, few would take this gibberish of mine. that led me to think of the nature of a true friend. it led me to think that true friends are people who dare to rebuke you, simply because of their love for you. they don't want you to go astray, so they reprimand you, to make sure you step on the correct path. they don't merely encourage, they stick with you, and stay with you, until you overcome your obstacles...

this week was a bad week ethically. instead of building people, i tore them down. sigh. perhaps the negativity of everything has finally gotten to me and i am slowly crumbling inside. which leads me to another point, about the stamina of spirit - how strong your spirit is after all the obstacles, how long more can your spirit last... please Father, strengthen me in the spiritual realm. grant me the perseverance and tenacity and the endurance, to sow the seeds, to water them, to let them grow. or even like the shepherd. please, Lord. 2 Cor 12:9 But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.' In weak, imperfect people, Your grace will always be enough, and through imperfectness, Your perfectness be seen.

Praise be to God, always!

familial angst

sigh. every now and then i feel a disconnect between my family and i. i don't know how to explain the forums and seminars i go to, i don't how to explain the ideas that i'm doing so i simplify things... and there's my family still treating me like i was a twelve year old kid. but now i'm twenty and very much aware of the world.

God make me patient and give me a gentle heart of meekness and humuility.

arh well.

picked up kurt vonnegut yesterday. picked up freeman dyson's 'scientist as rebel' and it quaintly describes how i want to feel. but anyway, the seminar yesterday was totally cocked. by that i mean, there's this world that i'm in which i didn't know about. and it was really about people talking cock. but it was nice. about the ideas that will be brought up to UN, ideas which people would hear but won't do anything about. enough of talking. stop talking as if climate change can be prevented. or the worst can be staved off. sianz.

heck, i feel like a rebel already. i'm tired of the many status quo that exists. the state of things as they are, in religion, in education, in politics... the way things are being done sometimes don't make much of a sense anymore. things are being done fast enough, not being done smart enough. still clinging on to the old way of things. sigh. but i am only still here, still close to nothing...

arh well.

20th april 2007 it seems like a long week, but next week will be....

this week was really fine. we weren't disturbed, and glory to God, i cleared my most dreaded of physical tests - the SOC. my sbo was loose, my rifle sling buckle came off, haven't had practise for while, the concertina wire was new and high...

i realised that one attribute i seemed to have gained was to disregard the fear in others, and just be able to focus and concentrate so intently on the task at hand that all other things seem relevant. and so it was. my rifle sling came off, my buckle dropped, but still i managed to run, even though i had to hold it in an extremely awkward manner. and i even did a sub-9. haha. all glory to Him.

soc and running are just immense tests of the mind and will. how you manage to go on even though you are tired, even when everything doesn't seem to work well in your favour. its also about the fact that sometimes, the victory is already there, waiting for you, in fact, beckoning you. but sometimes it just seems so easy to let even satan rob you of the victory, by persuading to give up, saying that you are too tired, you are too weak, you are undeserving, etc... once you can win this battle, the victory is yours, even though you might not be the first or the fastest. what matters is the battle you fight inside. because God is on your side...

i have favour, arising from my enthusiasm for running, for my ability with words. 2ic seems to like people good with words, or so i was told. but anyway, yeah. thank God.

there is also another thing i learnt. would i still be 'eddie' if i failed? i don't think so. i would still be me, no matter i did well or not, as long as i tried. what matters is the person inside sometimes, not what the person does. nothing can take that away from me. and nothing can separate me from the love of God. once again, to Him all thanks and glory...

errgh.. thanks to my suffocating parents, even my saturdays are now being subsumed into the category of family. errgh. its irritating to have so little breathing space. i already have sundays... isn't that enough. apparently not... arh well. just gotta live with an overbearing brother and an over-loving mother. oh God, really, pleease help me...

long week, short rest. 15th april 2007

i came back only 5 hours ago, i'll be going back to camp in like 6-7 hours time. yes, i've had precious little time for a weekend, but never mind. I made gold ippt.Thanks be to God, to Him the glory. haha.

'always look on the bright side of life...'

anyway, i had to go down to orchard on friday to do a report on the 40th anniversary of NS. since i got volunteered by my platoon, i really had to go down, didn't really mind it that much, since i was going down anyway to buy 'this is your brain on music', something like the final piece in the knowledge unity project that i'm working on, because it fits in at the confluence of science and the arts. picked up a book on western civilisation along the way, called simply 'civilization' by roger osborne. so anyway, i've finished writing, and i've got 3 versions, depending on who likes it. there isn't a lot of difference between them, just a few paragraphs, but i believe they make all the difference in the 3. meant to represent a spectrum of thoughts.

anyway, i'm happily writing, and i'm also starting to think about my position as a christian. how my views are ultimately going to differ from others. and it will be disturbing how things will turn out for me, as i am beginning to write. at the same time, with the brain-music book, i believe that i am another step closer in wrapping up the project.

meantime, in camp isn't going all the fun and sleeping. soon i'll be on standby, but i hope we won't be activated. arh well. i'm also exploring approaches to the hearts of others - and i happily take the message from cell though i know them already before. my aim was never this or that event. i know what was already in their hearts, duh, i've been with them for close to a year, and i know what they want, what they need. it'll take for time for things to work in their hearts, minds and spirit. it'll be a long, long process, and i might not see things happen for another 6 months, or even longer. but such is the long process of not just forming friendships, but forming them with the spirit.

i'll also hopefully, take the next few months to consolidate some of my older ideas, and see how they link up with my present ones. it'll be synergy all the way through.

meanwhile, i'm part of this forum on climate change in singapore, and i saw the entries of others, and i decided to do a kick-your-arse entry, shake things up a little bit, and see what happens. the jc kids look so stupid to me now. heck, i guess i was that stupid during jc too.

7th april 2007 has it really been a year already?

today really will be one year since i entered NS. but everything aside, its really just a date, a formality devised by man to keep track of things. but then again, sentiments kick in and i wonder about everything since a year ago - or at least thats what some people will be expected to do...

its a wonderful saturday, and it'll be devoted to the pursuit of books, simply because the screening timings of sunshine is so off, and because there's no one to watch it with... alas.. so enlightenment and renaissance, here i come!!

anyway, i thought about the consilience concept again, and i thought about the "theories of everything" - the thing most sought after in physics, though of course i am referring to entirely different things altogether. my version would be very different - it would be the 'theories of everything that we know' - in effect, 'theories of human knowledge'. it would reduce essay-writing economists to number crunching economists. all the arguments, all the essays would ultimately be judged using the scientific method of hypothesis, prediction, experiments. yes, it would cause the social sciences to really become like sciences... in time, the social sciences would see the withering away of the 'standard social science model' as a new generation of social scientists see the ultimate connection between human evolution and human behaviour, and building on these things, provide more accurate models on human behaviour, and predict with better accuracy, the effect of economic policies. or at least thats a dream. no, it won't be that everything be reduced into biology, chemistry or physics - thats simply too simplistic. but there will be levels of argument, and explanations up to a certain level would be sufficient. because its simply unhelpful to explain how decisions are made because of the flow of electrons in certain neurotransmitters in the brain... in that time, i think university departments will gradually move to interdiscplinary research, if they haven't done so already. they will establish departments to allow the interconnected areas of knowledge to come together, allowing psychology to work with life sciences, complexity researchers working with economists working with game theorists working with everyone else. or at least these are just dreams of a better future...

then again, all these things could become null if universities decide to keep on specialising in narrow myopic visions... which might undo this wonderful human endeavour, and forever submit the advance of knowledge to the shackles of ... self-interest?

i wonder, which is more important to universities - the patronising of governments and corporations, or knowledge for its own sake? i suspect that universities, in ensuring the former, neglect the latter. but thats the real world. oh well...

6th april 2007

tomorrow will mark the 1 year of national service. but funny, i only enjoyed the same holiday one week later last year. but never mind.

today was alright. first to church for a youthnet meeting, then to watch 300 - makes me want to buy that graphic model. and i looked up michael nyman...

the week in camp was fine. last week was the only week left during the short stay at seletar. i finally read the book that i wanted to read - Consilience by edward o wilson, and it didn't disappoint, though it caused some dismay. because the book was about my thoughts - the idea that humanities and the sciences might be all together in a unity, and yes, i had expected exactly where the uniting points might be, especially in the life sciences - humanity section. having read so much about human nature from biologists, what would i expect? steven pinker had already pointed out the evolutionary origin of many aspects of human nature, jared diamond had identified the origins of civilisation, geneticists such as cavalli-sforza and others have shown the origins of man, analyses in game theory have shown how human psychology operates in line with insights from evolutionary psychology - and within the natural sciences, studies in complexity are yielding insights into both ecosystems and economies, into large scale human and natural phenomena... all of these facts were available, having read so much thus, what am i left to conclude? that there is simply a unity behind the diverse facets of human knowledge. anyone who has read sufficiently enough would have to a similar conclusion as i have, and the results are really somewhat beyond dispute. in other words, i am so damned right. and to have read Consilience may also simply mean that i am on the right track... i have compressed decades of learning in a few months... woah... haha. but that also means that i have less original ideas to work with... sigh.

i am also developing a few ideas about God. i wonder if my suspicion is true... that today's christians are only aware of God as a personal God and Savior. Of course God is such, but He is also something more. He is not only the God of the israelites, He is the God of history. and history is not only in our personal history, it is also the political history of the world. which means, He moves, as jews were being exterminated by hitler, during the french and american revolutions, through the coups and uprisings, when the berlin wall fell, as chinese students were massacred in tiananmen, during the cuban missile crisis... He moves through history, during the time of Xerxes, Herod, even during the renaissance, the enlightenment, as newton was writing principia mathematica, as einstein formulated relativity... HE IS GOD. and sadly, churches nowadays seem to downplay this fact a lot. yes, He is our personal God and Savior, but He is also many things more, the Creator of heaven and earth, of knowledge, of both personal and political destiny... amen