Time and I against any two

Been rather preoccupied with loads of stuff be it academics or work. It has almost been 10 months since I last wrote stuff here.

Food for thought for this period of time:
These 10 months have been a rather fulfilling one (from an optimist point of view). Negative experiences and adversities in life always does make one stronger. The ability to see the interconnetcedness between many individuals have been deemed as a flaw that I might have. But the past 10 months have trained me to be a better person by not just looking at an individual but as well as looking at the interrelationship between the surrounding people as well. This has bring me a whole new light to see how vast, complicated and deadly to deal with certain situations given that collateral implications are bound to happen. Dealing with such issues requires extreme caution!

For now I shall continue with my studies considering the fact that the big thing is round the corner. A quote from a song is most representative of the sticky situation that I am "glued" in:

Lately, I've been, I've been losing sleep

Dreaming about the things that we could be

But baby, I've been, I've been praying hard,

Said, no more counting dollars

We'll be counting stars, yeah we'll be counting stars

(Counting Stars - One Republic)

With that, I shall end here for today and will hope to settle down after 05/12 to share and reflect on my experiences for the past 10 months.

Lost time is never found again

Friendships - The Bonds That Matters

Went to watch this movie recently on some websites. Was quite touched by the movie's plot. In case you never watched it before, here's a short summary of the movie:

Three high school students experience the perks and pitfalls of love in director Leste Chen's sensitive tale of friendship and yearning.

As a child living in a seaside town in southern Taiwan, studious Jonathan (Bryant Chang) was asked by his concerned teacher to look after rebellious classmate Shane (Joseph Chang). Ten years later, what was once a good-natured obligation has since blossomed into a warm friendship, with Jonathan still on the academic track and Shane now finding his calling on the basketball court.

Taiwan-born schoolgirl Carrie (Kate Yeung) arrives from Hong Kong to join her mother after a disagreement with her father and transfers to their school. She befriends Jonathan and convinces him to join her on a secret day-trip to Taipei and in the evening she seduces him in a sleazy hotel but Jonathan backs down clearly distraught. Eventually, her observations of his and Shane's friendship leads her to believe that he is gay and in love with his best friend.

Carrie then meets Shane through Jonathan after a school day where Shane develops an interest in Carrie. Despite her initial misgivings about the boorish Shane, she eventually gives in to the troublemaker's roguish charms. She accepts his offer to become his girlfriend on the condition that he manages to enter university.

Later, Shane pulls his act together and tests into University, but Jonathan, distracted by his burgeoning sexual identity crisis, does not. Shane does his best to keep his feelings for Carrie secret in order to protect the feelings of his lifelong friend. Despite all their best efforts to keep their personal feelings secret, the truth eventually emerges, forcing all three to view their relationships in an entirely new light.

(Quoted from: Wikipedia.com)

Well in my personal opinion, the movie can be summarised into the following sentence: "You will not mind your friend for who they are and are willing to accept them for who they are". It is extremely disgusting to observe those superficial "friends" who are always behind your back stabbing you while in front of you, will put up a fake front by being very friendly with you. Thus in my life, I always have these set of rules as a guide on friendship. I can be very nice and close to you and even up to a stage of self declared "best friend forever". But if I were to find out that you were those that belongs to the group that I will classify it as being superficial (even it is not to me but someone else) I will not be bothered with you and please do not bother me anymore. By staying away from me, I will be very grateful to you.

So with the previous discussion, it has bring us to one point called honesty. I think what Johnathan did was absolutely commendable. If that was to happen to me, I think honesty is really the best policy. You might think why is this so? Like what the movie has shown, if there is a secret kept in between both of them, no matter how long the friendship last, it will still go down the drain. So no matter how established the bonds were, a secret in it will set it on fire and eventually burn it down to ashes. 

Using these 2 quotes, I will end my post here for you guys to ponder about it! "True friends stab you in the front" and "One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood". =D

RACE (Realise, Appreciate, Cherish, Enjoy) TO IT

Came across this short video production that was shared by my friends on Facebook. The title of the clip is called "Tambun Biscuit". I guess this clip really summarised my previous blog post titled "Looking Back into the Past".

(DISCLAIMER: I am not really concerned about the national education part, instead I will be focusing the values of it)

From my personal point of view, during my service in the army, it has instilled me with lots of values that I once deemed useless and it is through the tough times that there is this sudden enlightenment that I got when I was in the mess. So as my title suggests, family is the most important thing that one must have. Your family will always be the one behind you, supporting and cheering you up whenever you are down. No matter how rebellious you are, your family will always be the one who is willing to accept you when you repent as opposed to how the society will react to it. 

So knowing that family is of paramount influence, do not take it for granted. At any given time of our lives, things can be taken away from us in an instantly. Thus, we got to cherish and appreciate it. Take some time of your live to commit to interact with your family so that the relationship between each other will not be strained. It is always a common sight that one will start to regret and lament only after the departure of their loved ones. Although it is unavoidable that such feelings will seep in, it can be minimized. Ever since age of 4, I have been experiencing it so I guess I have learnt through the hard way and it is during harsh time that I begin to learn to cherish everything that I have. 

Like what my title suggests, RACE TO IT! Realise, Appreciate, Cherish and Enjoy the times you have with your family and the things that you owned. By accomplishing RACE, it will definitely make your life more emotionally fulfilling. =)

Your Actions - Understanding the Course (& Cause) of it

It has been quite a rough month for both my friends and I as we were embraced by an "Indian Ocean Tsunami" - something that is so destructive and impactful that it is going to take years to recover from the devastating effect that the tsunami has brought upon us, particularly to those who were at the epicenter of the disaster. It is in this kind of event that one will distinguish who is sincere and willing to render their helping hand to you in contrast to those who will continue to implicate harm on you and watch you die. Sometimes it would not be that hard for one to ponder why the world cannot be a better place where everyone keeps a look out for each other, a place where faith in humanity is restored. Well in my opinion such utopia is almost impossible especially with how we are being inculcated with the importance of power and money where emotional fulfillment is practically ignored. It is very dreadful to realise that the world now revolves around power and money or otherwise known as material gains. In the quest to seek for what they desire, collateral damage is bound to happen as one will use unscrupulous, underhand means to achieve what they crave for. Such acts, in my opinion, are conscienceless, degrading and odious. So today, I shall take the opportunity to deliver a message, as my title suggests, to everyone out there who have the intent that is described above. To those that have did it, you ought to reflect on your wrong doings.

Like what I have mentioned previously, every single actions that one act it out will have some form of positive or negative implications to it. Well let me safely assumed that, in general, those who tends to commit such hedious crimes are generally those that have lower emotional quotient and social intelligence. Social intelligence describes the exclusively human capacity to effectively navigate and negotiate complex social relationships and environments. With these two coming together, it is of high certainty that the kind of damage that they are going to inflict will be disastrous. Let me use the following example to illustrate the statement that I am trying to prove.

In a class, a class representative is appointed by the teacher. However, the class rep begin to abuse his/her power and then start to brainwash people to ostracize one of the classmate that the rep dislike. To make the situation worst, the rep begins to call that particular classmate names and many more. As a result, that particular classmate starts to feel depressed and like in all extreme cases committed suicide. 

Well one might argue that such acts are classified as childish reason being that the example is  in a school setting. But let us extrapolate it to the workplace where office politics are bound to happen. Such acts can be further magnified into something that can be more serious and impactful. One such example would be the sabotage of colleague's work. It is hard to deny that even those with a relative good EQ and social intelligence will still be blinded by the monetary incentives and others. However, this is the part where the differentiation of these group of people from the rest (those low EQ and social intelligence) will set in. Guilt. Those that are of a relatively average EQ and social intelligence will be guilt stricken when they reflect upon their misdoings. However, for those that are of lower than usual EQ and social intelligence, they will be numb for what they did and even if they are being pointed out, they will be in the state of delusion and denial. In my opinion, that is when I will classify them as a bunch of selfish and naive individuals. 

Not only you will bring harm to others, it will also reflect badly about yourself. Nobody will trust you in anything you do. Your social circle will be drastically reduced. Hurtful things about you will spread like wild fire. The list is not exhaustive. To round it off, you might have gained something that you want by carrying out something hurtful intially, but in the long run, those who are hurt will trump as justice will always be on their side for the injustice that you have done to them. Let me use this quote: "Trust is like a mirror you can fix it when it is broken. But you can still see the crack in the reflection." It takes time for your reputation to be recovered but like the quote suggests, people will still be cautious against you.

So my point here is very simple, think before you act. God gave you a brain to think, unless you think otherwise, then I do not see a point in your existence in the world. To avoid the guilt from haunting you for the rest of your life, give yourself and others a break. Take time to reflect about yourself and readjust your position in life. This will make your life and, as well as the others, an easier one. Smile! =D

Working Hard is the Key to an Achievable Resolution!

Every year we will make our new year resolution, but ask yourself this question: Do you remember your resolutions made for the year 2012? It is by no surprise that most of us tend to conveniently forget it. Similarly for me, I am one of the victims as well. As we forget about our new year resolutions, we will forget what we want to achieve this year. So with this in mind, I will write down my New Year Resolution here so that my resolution will be a purposeful one.

1. To strive for academic excellence.
2. Gain maximum mental and emotional fulfillment 
3. Pray for a peaceful and healthy family

While everyone makes resolution for the new year, it will never be achieved if hard work and effort is not put in. So to make the upcoming year a fulfilling one, I will strive to put in my best effort to achieve my goals so that it will not be, yet another, disappointing year. So when you make your resolution, make sure effort and determination is put in. Cheers and have a Happy New Year! =D May 2013 be a fruitful year for all of you! =)

Criticism - A feat that is hard to achieve

Lets take a look at the judges of the X Factor USA 2012 (From left to right: L. A. Reid, Demi Lovato, Simon Cowell and Britney Spears) Well I guess even without me explaining who they are, you should be able to know what they do.

In case for some that are not into the English Pop sensation, here are the information about them: (Click on the respective URLs)

 L. A. Reid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.A._Reid

Demi Lovato: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demi_Lovato

Simon Cowell: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Cowell

Britney Spears: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britney_Spears

To summarize, each of the judges are definitely competent in the field of music and the entertainment industries. In my personal view, the Program Director have indeed exercised his choice of the judges wisely. The reason being, that the judges are capable to provide constructive criticism to the performers so that they can buff up their performance in order to win the outwin the rest of the competitors!

So what is Criticism? Criticism is the practice of judging the merits and faults of something or someone in an intelligible (or articulate) way. Do note the presence of the word intelligible in the definition provided above. This clearly shows that criticism involves the use of your knowledge and understanding to provide a detail analysis of a particular subject and therefore providing constructive feedback on how a somethings can be further improvised. Having explained so much about criticism, it all boils down to this: Personal senses/views are never are not an important recipe to cook up a good criticism.

It intrigues me a lot when people start to criticize others about a particular issue when they do not have any fundamental background knowledge on the topic of discussion. That person simply just shoot them self in the foot. Take this as an example, 

X whispered to Y saying that Z has a weird fashion sense as Z will wear combinations like yellow and blue (the earthly colours). However, Y rebutted back saying that this is the current fashion trend for this year and many have been following suit with it. In the end X was dumbfounded and went back to work.

If one provides a baseless critic, it just clearly shows that there is only this thin sheer layer of background knowledge that you have and yet despite of this you still have the audacity to voice out your comments. This kind of people are normally arrogant yet senseless. Therefore, my personal take would be that if you think that you are incapable of providing constructive criticism, then be humble and, at the same time, gain some knowledge to widen your perspective. 

To summarize it all, it takes years for one to be able to be well versed in a particular arena. So if you think that by doing last minute preparations to buff up your knowledge to provide positive feedback, then I think you are a bit naive in believing that miracles will appear out of nowhere.

Paradox of Freedom - We are Free to Express but meanwhile, we are Chained Down by Social Perceptions

Now look at this picture and try and decipher what it means:

Remember what you have deciphered for yourself. 

Now what if I tell you that the message that the photographer is trying to bring across is Self Denial as the photographer named the shot as "I honestly do not believe the world is bigger than this". Assuming that your guess is different from the actual message, let me guess what you are gonna do. You will attempt to look back at the photo and try to establish the connection between the correct message and the picture. Followed by that, you will try to correct yourself by convincing that the message you had interpreted is wrong and then accept the supposedly "flawless" answer. 

So here comes the question, "What defines Correct?" and  "How Correct is Correct?". It is of extreme difficulty to draw the line between the black and white especially when it comes to such questions where different people have different interpretations. However, in this society, everyone will  tend to behave the same as the example that I have employed. What account for this kind of behavior exhibited by us? Well, in my opinion, one of the main reasons could be due to the fact that we are predisposed to social perception in this society. Thus we tend to seek the "definite correct" answer and gladly accept it and at the mean time we do not dare to voice out our personal take about a particular issue or discussion.

Social perception is that part of perception that allows people to understand the individuals and groups of their social world. It allows an individual to make judgement and impression about other people on their first encounter. Social perception is a primary observations made  about someone based on our pre-existing knowledge. This knowledge will influence how we perceive an objection. The presence on social perception will result in an individual to be self conscious in terms of the ways they act, talk and express their idea. As a complication of such phenomena, there will be a lack of creativity and ideas in this society if everyone tends to impose this kind of self restriction. 

Apart from social perception, I guess another factor that haunts most of us would be stereotypism, alternatively we can use the Implicit Personality Theory to account for it. What does this implicit personality theory entails? It refers to general expectations that we build after knowing the central traits of that person. For example, we tend to associate a happy person to be friendly and so on. With the constant gripping fear of such happenings, most of us will have the tendency to just follow suit with the general public as a slight deviation from the public will simply label you as strange, odd or plain weird.

In my personal opinion, such fear should be put to a stop. If such apprehensions persists, the world will no longer be what we will be viewing it as. Everything will be the same and life will be mundane. The future will be bleak. 

As such my personal take to you all will be: "Be Free to Express What YOU WANT! Heck the Social Perceptions and Judgement!" By doing what you want to do and not following what other thinks, you will definitely feel more emotionally enriched and the restriction that you used to have in your heart will be broken free. Like what most of the teens use the quote YOLO (You Only Live Once). Make full use of it and do not let the society's opinion hold you down. To those who plainly follow with the society, I guess is time for you all to go and reflect yourself and life would be better if you are not tied down to it. 

Now lets take a look back at this picture:

                                                         

Let me analysed the picture:

• The Cage: Social Perceptions/Judgement
• The Black Bird: A dull/mundane individual that takes the social perceptions and judgement too seriously
• The Coloured Bird: An emotionally enriched individual, who expresses himself/herself freely (do not care about social perceptions and judgement)

The message that the picture is trying to portray: Live to Be Yourself, Do Not Let the Others Define Who You Are!

p.s. You don't always say stupid things, eight hours of the day you sleep.