Confirm slutty daughter worse. Firstly my son could be a really cool criminal who organises bank heists and stuff. Even if he is a second-rate criminal like, I don't know, drug-trafficking, it's still pretty indicative of his guts. Plus being a criminal just means he is devious (but not devious enough to evade capture) and deviant enough. Also, guys can get away with more things. A slutty woman is just a slutty woman; that she could be clever enough to use her feminine wiles is not the first thing that comes to people's minds.
From Jane's blog:
Is it worth it to give it all up for a diamond studded degree or two?
Depending on what "all" means. Does it mean giving up your dignity and integrity? If it does, then no. If it means creating a large hole in your pocket, then it's fine. I personally think that a degree, especially a diamond-studded one, is not just a piece of paper but also means putting you into contexts where you get to interact with other interesting, brilliant and driven people. And you'll be perceived as interesting, brilliant and driven by association.
Is it possible to mend the hole in the soul?
I would think not. I think the soul just evolves to accommodate the hole, but the scar will always remain. Innocence once lost can never be regained.
Is it wise to choose a path of cold indifference?
As opposed to choosing a path of passionate involvement? Recently, I've come to realise the duality of human emotions, that you can be detached and attached all at the same time. It's a very Zen sort of concept that has awoken in me. Don't know why I took so long to figure that out, that you can like engage your body but not your soul, your mind but not your heart. It is probably safer to choose a path of cold indifference, but definitely not wise, since wisdom involves experiencing a whole bunch of things and then having the capacity to reflect about them with measured contemplation, yes? Feeling hurt involves having bad things done to you and reacting to them negatively, and since people cannot avoid having bad things happen to them, they take control of what they can actually control: their reaction. But I think it is impossible to shut down your capacity to react negatively without also shutting down your capacity to react positively, so in effect one is denying one's self of both the pleasures and pangs of life.
Is it human to be devoid of feelings, and to depend solely on rationality?
Of course it isn't human. But maybe if you question yourself deeper, perhaps even seemingly cold, calculated rationality is not that cold and calculated after all. Consider a decision-making process. IMO, typically one feels an irrational inclination to a particular option, then formulates several arguments for that option. I am suddenly reminded of the book Blink, although I didn't read it.
Is contentment a good enough excuse for mediocrity?
It sounds harsh this way, but that's what a lot of people do, don't they? If it works, I guess it is as good an excuse as any other :)
Is it wrong to be discontented and doubting?
Not wrong, but damaging. I don't think it is a moral failing to be malcontent and doubtful, but it would aversely affect the way you lead your life, for reasons I expounded upon in an earlier answer.
Is romantic love merely a thinly veiled ploy designed by nature for the perpetuation of our highly complex species?
I actually think that romantic love is an inevitable byproduct of our complex social hierarchies. Or rather, what we typically consider romantic love to be is definitely a social convention. This is what Wee Kiat thinks about why romantic love has to be exclusive:
I guess you don't need romantic love to bring forth new offspring, but you might need romantic love between the couple to sustain and bring up competent offspring. Romantic love acts as a tacit agreement that whatever they do, they are committed to do it together and do it well, which involves bringing up offspring.
Should religion progress with the times?
I think it should. Then again, isn't the entire idea of religion to behave as a bulwark that holds people through regardless of the zeitgeist? I guess with different eras, people will interpret the same religious scriptures as per their frame of mind, and in that sense, religion will progress with the times.
What ensures solidarity between the mind and the physical body?
The mind-body dualism! I have no idea. I have an inclination to reduce all our thoughts and feelings to neurological firings in our brain, but that answer wouldn't be very satisfying, would it? I think solidarity between mind and body is the norm, so perhaps it would be more useful to ask what would break the solidarity between the mind and the body. Some psychotic disorder, eh? It just occurred to me that psychosis is typically treated by suppressing the symptoms - perhaps even elevating the mind-body disconnect. Gosh, I don't have an answer.
******
Bumped into Jonathan at work, who revealed that he has practically lost touch with his JC friends. It got me thinking that yea, JC friends really don't stick around all that much, and if you're in a clique, it's more out of convenience than a real need to have companions growing up with you. It's quite sad, but I don't think I will stoop to blaming NJC for our predicament; NJ might suck as an organisation (like all large organisations, diseconomies of scale is inevitable), but its students should not be blamed for its failings.
I am always very tempted to say, "we wait, we wait, and the saints and martyrs wait", but I think the Murder in The Cathedral quote will be lost on everyone but my fellow Literature students. (In fact only NJC Lit students will know it, since we were the only school that used that text.) There won't be that common understanding, the flash of recognition, the hint of irony resonant when twin bodies of knowledges reveal an unexpected overlap. I guess that's what I miss most sorely about JC: the vast overlap between our stores of knowledge, because we read the same texts and are taught the same things. I miss the intellectual vibrance, and Jonathan, being a symbol of all that, reminded me of it.
What I dislike about phones, and technology in general, is your - or rather, my - dependence on them to give me affirmation. I've learned to wean myself out of constantly checking my phone for incoming messages, but I just as quickly unlearned it and now I am dependent on my phone's sporadic beepings.
One person said that he feels "damn comfortable around me" and another says he feels a bond with me. I think of these declarations and go, what the fuck, I am supposed to be cultivating an image of detachment and aloofness, I am supposed to be intimidating and unapproachable. I guess I find it appalling that it is possible for others to react to me emotionally, that someone like me elicits an emotional response and not just a rational one. If someone said they liked me because I am intelligent and interesting, I wouldn't be surprised, but if they said they liked me because they feel comfortable around me I wouldn't understand why.
No comments:
Post a Comment