The Beginning of a New Chapter

Serving the People.

When Not To Trust Strangers

I had an interesting talk with my father about the case of con men. He mentioned one about a motorcyclist who offered to help a driver find direction using the driver's phone, only to speed away with the phone moments later. 

In our discussion, we agreed that as a rule, the friendliest strangers on the streets are those least to be trusted. This is because, normal people treat strangers like strangers. It is acceptable to smile and greet politely at strangers, but it is not normal to let them use our phone. It is fine to talk about the weather, traffic, or home-town, but it is not normal to share our home address. 

But it's not that strangers should be treated poorly. It also doesn't mean that, as a rule, we should never let strangers use our phone or tell them our full address. Obviously, there are exceptions to such rules - when someone desperately needs our help. And the trick to remain safe - while being helpful to strangers - is actually to trust them. 

The problem is not that we trust strangers too easily. The problem is that we don't trust them enough. 

Yes, we should learn to trust those we've never met before. If we really trusted the man on the street, we would be less vulnerable to those who try to cheat us. This is because by trusting the man on the street, we will find it normal to be awkward at first meeting. And so if somebody is getting too comfortable with us at the first meeting, we would be careful with him.

If a stranger asks for help or offers one, but hesitantly or shyly so, then he is the one we can trust. He is hesitant and shy because he is a stranger to you, and you are a stranger to him, and it is normal to be hesitant and shy to strangers. And because we trust strangers we can trust him. 

On the other hand, if somebody asks for help or offers one, all-too-readily as if he is our friend (when he is not), then we cannot trust him. He is neither a stranger (as he acts all-too-friendly), nor is he a friend of ours. We don't trust him because we only trust our friends and strangers - and he is neither of them(!)

***

So to answer the question in the title, when not to trust strangers? Never. Although, apart from our friends and (real) strangers, we should trust no one else. That is, we can trust our friends and strangers; but we cannot trust friends who act like strangers, or strangers who act as if they are our friends.  

Gravity

1. Sole Survivor

Gravity is a film about two astronauts, stranded in space by an accident, struggling to make a safe return to Earth. It's visually stunning, and its simple plot belies its vivid and realistic depiction of the story.

We can compare it to that Tom Hanks movie, Castaway. In both stories, [spoilers!] there were really no plot surprises: we knew very well that the lead characters will survive the fatal accidents, albeit barely.


2. Isolation

Although both Gravity and Castaway are about surviving tragedies, there is a subtle difference between these two films. If in Castaway, Chuck (Tom Hanks) was left in solitude by the accident (stranded on an island and abandoned by his longtime partner); in Gravity, Dr Stone (Sandra Bullock) was already living in solitude before the accident (traumatized by her daughter's death), and the tragedy (space accident) actually brought her back to society (to tell a most interesting story).

In other words, in Castaway, the crash made the survivor lonely; whereas in Gravity - the crash saved the survivor from her loneliness.


3. Don't just stay alive

This difference can also be seen in another way. By the end of Castaway, Chuck retells his misadventures and how he plans to "keep breathing, because tomorrow the sun will rise..". Isn't this scene similar to the one in Gravity, when Dr. Stone confides the loss of her daughter to the other astronaut, Kowalski (George Clooney)? 

So Chuck's attitude to "keep 

So Chuck's attitude to "keep breathing" (or just stay alive) despite his predicaments is similar to Dr. Stone's attitude for the most part of the movie. Dr. Stone started where Chuck left off. However, she soon realizes that her attitude has to change. She couldn't just stay alive, but to actually fight to stay alive.


4. From Blind Optimism to Idealistic Pessimism

What if Chuck's blind optimism - "tomorrow the sun will rise, who knows what the tide will bring" - is also a recipe for future disappointment? Of course "the tide" can bring miracles; but it can very well bring more disasters. To hope for a miracle is to give up on our own effort, and so, make us more vulnerable to disaster. 

That was how Dr. Stone reacted to her daughter's loss. She would have not survived the space accident if she persisted in this attitude - only hoping for a miracle to happen. And it was not a miracle that saved her, but her own wit (projected to Kowalski in the form of a hallucination).

By quoting Kowalski, "Houston, I have a bad feeling about this mission", Dr. Stone signaled her new found attitude: 'I don't think this will go well, but I'd do anything to make sure it will.'

Romance sans Paroles

National Ideals and the War on Corruption

What we lack today in Malaysia are our national ideals. What are we working towards? Whom do we want to become? What do we want to achieve as a nation? 

Whilst only a decade ago we had some belief in our ideals such as Vision 2020, now that we are approaching the deadline we seem to have lost that vision. Could it be something so bright that it blinds us when it's nearer? Or perhaps like a visual illusion, could it have disappeared as we approached it?   

... 

The only national ideal Malaysians may think of nowadays is for us to become a country free from corruption. Most, if not all of our complaints today we would blame on corruption as the root cause. But let me discuss here, why 'War on Corruption' is futile - not unlike 'War on Terror' or 'War on Drugs'.  

The main reason why it is impossible to win these 'wars' is because in these battles, we are our own worst enemies!  

For example, what is really the 'War on Terror', if not Terror itself? And how can we really eliminate heroin addiction, if we only substitute it with just another drug, methadone? 

Those points may be easier for us to accept, when a harder case to make is to say that corruption is fought with, well, more corruption!  

... 

How can this be? If government officials do not accept bribery or abuse their power surely there'll be no corruption. So there is no need for more corruption to fight corruption.  

But this is like saying if people stop doing drugs there will be no drug addiction, or, if all terrorists..  

It is the waged 'war' against corruption that is actually the problem - the war that most of us would think is most needed today. It is a problem because the way this war is fought is by using the enemies' weapon against them - only that (in this war) we are our own enemies! 

As a result of fighting in these wars - against terror, drugs, and corruption - the weapons (bombs, drugs, bribes) are used twice as much: once by the enemy, and again by the heroes. Regardless of who wins the war, it is the people - who may not be the enemy or hero - who would suffer the most: twice bombed, doubly drugged, and robbed again for the second time. 

… 

While stricter laws and stronger law enforcement may help catch corrupt officials, it is not difficult to observe how these measures may actually worsen corruption by causing higher bribes, as it becomes harder for the corrupt to cover up their tracks and so they would pay more.   

Also, in plain view, aren't fines and prison sentences served by convicted corrupt officials only a form of 'bribery to the public'? That is, they may be forgiven for their corruption as long as they can also pay to the public a certain amount of money and time in prison. 

So long as we, members of the public, accept 'bribery from the corrupt', we also have to accept that there will always be corruption.  

... 

All of this is not to deny the reality of corruption, any more than we can deny terrorism and drug addiction. The point is that we cannot eradicate these problems by their own elements - it would be as lighting fire to fight fire, or pouring water to reduce the flood.  

To fight fire we need the fire extinguisher, and to reduce the flood, proper drainage.  

The root cause of corruption is greed, so changing the people in power is irrelevant - because greed comes with power. But if we all strive for some national ideals, then anyone in power would stay away from corruption - not because then they are afraid that they can get caught (they can pay to escape that), but because, striving for the national ideals, the people in power would choose to be honest.  

  

This is why today, as ever, we need our national ideals! 

Here are some suggestions:

1. Environmental - Keep Malaysia Clean & Green
2. Cultural - 'Berbudi bahasa amalan kita', Our Arts Our Heritage, 'Malaysia Boleh'
3. Scientific/Technological -  Malaysia Space Program, Malaysia Medical Project
4. Social/ Health - Make Our Streets Safe, Healthy Is Easy
5. Education - Future Leaders Project,  Read Malaysia 
6. Economy/Business - Local Products with Global Quality

*** 1Malaysia fails as an ideal because it is not one - we are already one Malaysia - and so it is merely a statement of a fact, not an ideal. A vocalist's ideal is not just to be a singer (that is already who she is), but to be famous, win awards, etc.  

Some may claim that we are still racially divided in this country, so he wants unity, and that is his ideal. The irony is that he'd be the same person who claims that the slogan 1Malaysia is redundant. 

Perhaps he is like someone who wants to be a vocalist but refuses the title of a singer. Maybe he doesn't really want to sing, or what is more possible, deep down he knows that in fact he cannot sing. Then perhaps he may rightly refuse to be called a singer, if after all, his singing is poor.

Act First, Plan Later

We must act before we plan. But wouldn't this lead us to recklessness?  

In fact, to plan first leads us to recklessness easier than to act first - as one could either make a reckless plan and adhere to it religiously, or one can break his plan through recklessness. 

... 

To have to act first, makes one responsible for his actions, and makes him conscientious from the very beginning, as no plans can be blamed for any disastrous outcome.  

Whereas to plan first before any action is taken, takes the consequences of each action away from their causes - because only the goals of the plan are considered - and this can make the person less responsible for his actions, especially if he follows a misleading plan too closely. 

... 

This doesn't mean that we shouldn't make plans at all. Instead, we should only make plans after we have taken some action - i.e plans should be made to change the direction of our actions, and not to tell us, from the beginning to the end, all the specific actions that we must take in order to reach our goals.  

Impromptu

Moving, Fast and Slow

When I went out for a walk recently, this thought occurred to me:

Roads take up a lot more space than pavements. Of course, this is only because vehicles are bigger than the humans driving them. Therefore roads must be wider than pavements. But perhaps this also makes roads a lot less efficient in the utility of space - that is, they allow less people to be on them to function well, compared to pavements.

Of course, we can travel a lot faster and further by road, but we often spend more time on the road to get to our destination than we do by walking on a pavement - as we will get tired if we walk too far.  

So the use of pavements is limited by our energy to walk, whereas there is virtually no such limit for driving on a road (as an engine does all the work to move a vehicle). Maybe this is why people spend a lot of time on the road, and also resources on both the vehicle and road itself. And because of this, the advantages of roads such as further and quicker travels are offset by the huge resources and time spent to travel by road.  

... 

This contrast between roads and pavements can perhaps be used to compare the digital and pre-digital technology (new vs old). For example, the Internet offers faster and wider-sourced information compared to previous technologies, and the limits of those pre-internet resources (e.g books) do not apply to the internet. 

But don't we also spend a lot of time and resources on this limitless information technology - as we do on the roads? Compared to walking on the pavement, the more we use the road - instead of reaching our destination more efficiently - we spend more and more time and energy on the journey itself.   

And so with the Internet compared to pre-internet information technology, instead of arriving at any good understanding of a particular subject, we become more and more caught up in the search for that understanding itself. 

Please Lose It

1.  Sexting App

An interesting development in the arena of digital technology is the release of the new iPhone app, Snapchat. Usually, we take photos in order to keep and share them with our friends - but this new app actually sets a time limit (maximum 10 seconds) to share our photos before they get deleted permanently.

This self-deleting (or self-cleaning) technology is actually not new, as most internet browsers already long have an 'incognito' mode that purposely deletes our browsing history. Of course, some commentators are quick to associate Snapchat with the 'incognito' mode, and speculate on the real use of this new app - to do 'dirty' stuff without getting caught. As 'incognito' mode was nicknamed porn mode, Snapchat is being recognized as a sexting app. 


2. Beyond Us, Agony of Loss

Let's attempt to distinguish two non-exclusive kinds of loss: subjective, and objective. 

Subjective loss is when something is not within our reach. Objective loss is when something is not within the reach of others. In other words, something that is subjectively lost is beyond us; when something is objectively lost it is beyond them. An object can obviously be lost both subjectively and objectively, but it can also be lost only subjectively, or vice versa. 

Let's take a familiar example: when we lose a pen. This is a subjective loss, as the pen is beyond our reach. However, this is not necessarily an objective loss, as we believe the pen must be 'out there' - misplaced, or stolen, either way - the pen is still within the reach of other people. So it's only a subjective loss (the pen is beyond me, not beyond others). The lost object can be a key, remote control (in those good ol' days), or even a certain fact (person's name, a certain topic from a textbook, etc.). 

We can also speculate that a purely subjective loss (like losing a pen) is almost always a painful experience. This agony is experienced, as the effort to retrieve the lost object may also reveal our impotence to keep everything that is within our reach from getting lost. Hence, this realization turns into a frustration.


3. Beyond Them, Please Forget

As there are purely subjective losses, perhaps there could be purely objective losses - things that are lost from others, but not from ourselves (beyond them, not beyond us). One good example of a purely objective loss would be Snapchat, the self-deleting photo sharing app.

Before we talk about Snapchat, we can use the example of a lost pen again to illustrate an objective loss. This time, however, we have not lost a pen, but curiously, another person has lost it. Another way to look at it, is that in a subjective loss, we've lost a pen that must be somewhere in the office; whereas in an objective loss, the office has lost a pen, but we know where it is. Of course, we can suspect mischief in such objective loss (all of you don't know where it is, but I do). 

But isn't this objective loss also useful to cover our shame (as it may hide our guilt in the pen situation)? Perhaps this is where Snapchat, and 'incognito' browsing mode have their roles in our digital age. 

These self-cleaning tools could be a response to the all-too-efficient way the digital world remembers. There are certain things that we'd like others to forget, but the digital world never forgets - unless it's given specific commands to do so. And to make matters worse, more and more memory backups are created precisely to avoid digital memories from getting lost. What a world we live in.


***

Image source: http://www.lolbrary.com/post/37696/snapchat/

The Sound of Reassurance

On Brahms' Intermezzo in A major

The first time I paid attention to this beautiful piano piece was on a mid-autumn late afternoon, travelling home from work. I had it on my mp3 player along with other classical pieces in a compilation album of the 'Best Classical Music' I downloaded from the internet. I fell in love with it instantly as I heard the pristine chorus. 

But before we talk about the chorus, first let's listen to this piece from its very beginning.

...

The opening theme is rather modest. In fact this opening statement is repeated three times, before, a circular, series of upgoing and downgoing notes are played. This dizzying array of notes that follow the repetitive opening melody may be uninteresting to the listener. But this is why we can take it as a test of the listener's endurance to pay attention to this piece, despite its apparent dullness in this section. This becomes more challenging as a further series of downgoing dissonance follow.

It is not long, however, before a comforting, most beautiful chorus is introduced - and the listener's patience is finally redeemed. This is when we can feel that the music is telling us that "everything is alright."

Then, the piece takes us to its problematic theme. This fast-paced theme is played twice and each time it ends with a 'question mark' - before moving on to the next theme of temporary comfort. The slow changing notes of this soothing theme, are then followed by the restless problematic theme again. This time, however, the problematic theme is eventually merged to the recapitulation of the opening section. The merge is cleverly achieved by the upgoing 'question mark' repeated until the opening melody is finally reached.

After the opening theme is repeated again, it is followed by the circular theme, now already familiar on repeated hearing. And not long after, we hear the wonderful chorus that ends the piece. Here again, we are reminded by the chorus, poetically repeated at the end, that "everything will be alright."

(This is my rendition of this brilliant composition by Brahms. Enjoy)

Human Migration

Many people flock to big cities and leave their hometowns when they are still young, but old enough to live independently. What better reason could there be to move into the city than its greater job opportunity, which promises better life than to remain in smaller hometowns. We might compare new city immigrants to prisoners who have just escaped prison, prematurely celebrating their escape. How unfortunate for the escapees, however, when they will eventually realize that they haven't actually escaped from prison life. They have merely moved from one cell to another - only this time it's bigger and crowded with other prisoners. 

Is there no escape then?

Perhaps there is - but not in moving places. No doubt, it is easier to escape prison, than to escape prison life. However, the tyrannies of prison life will hunt the escapee anywhere he goes. The only way for the prisoner to achieve freedom is to really deserve it. An innocent man, when falsely imprisoned, may suffer from injustice. But to soothe his suffering, he finds consolation in his innocence. A guilty man has no such privilege. No wonder he always brings his troubles with him, in and out of prison.

The Buildup

Denial Makes the Memory Grow Stronger

1. 

I have previously discussed the analogy of a bucket for our mental faculty of storing information, that is, our memory. In that analogy, I likened the size of the bucket to the sum of our understanding, or conceptual knowledge. Whereas the filling of the bucket itself, I compared to bits of information, or factual knowledge. 

So I concluded that in order to be able to remember more (and forget less), we'd have to get a bigger bucket.  In other words, we'd have to understand more concepts - and avoid overloading our memory with meaningless information, which could overfill the bucket and cause a lot of spillage. 

Now I'm interested in thinking about why our memory does not always work - at least not for our sake - and why we remember certain things and not others. And this has lead me to reflect on the paradox that we remember best those things we try hardest to forget. In other words, denial makes the memory grow stronger. (Pun intended. That famous phrase "distance makes the heart grow fonder" is actually quite relevant here.)*

2. 

If one of your friends had promised to get you a birthday present, and when the day came, he didn't give you any, there are two possibilities why this had happened. It could be that his memory has failed him and he'd totally forgotten it (either his promise, or, your birthday); or it could be that he remembered his promise, but for any reason (like being broke, or too busy) he couldn't afford to fulfill it. 

Of course, if you were to ask him about it, even when he remembered but was not able to do it, your friend would have still told you that he has forgotten about giving you a birthday present. So from this scenario we can look at the two ways to interpret the word 'forget': either as a lapse of memory ("Oh sorry I forgot!"); or, a denial ("Ah, just forget it!").

We could also look at this dichotomy of meaning, as between the passive verb ("I always forget.."); and the active verb ("I must forget it!"). Interestingly, we can be in totally opposite situations and still use the same word. In one situation, we regret not to remember something; whereas in the another, we regret remembering too much.

3.

Maybe we can trick ourselves into remembering any useful information by trying hard - not to remember it, but - to actually forget it. To put it simply: try hard to forget something, and it will stick in your memory. 

___

* When a loved one is not around us, we'd have to try hard to forget that person. Or else it would be too depressing to be constantly aware of that person's absence. Ironically as we found earlier, what happens when we try hard to forget something, is that we remember it even more. Hence, distance makes the heart grow fonder.

Of Games and The Illusion of Control

As a part-time gamer, I admit to sometimes losing myself to computer games. In fact, I have just spent the holidays getting totally absorbed in some of them. And of course, it was only because they were so much fun - especially to play online games with friends.

I have also reflected on the gaming experience itself, and I thought, perhaps what is fun about it is not that gaming is an effortless activity. Games are fun not simply because they let you be lazy. They can actually be quite demanding - even if not physically so - as they require our time, energy and concentration. Easy games can quickly bore us. And despite how much a gamer can be lazy in real life, he often does give his best while playing his favourite games. 

However, we are not that far mistaken when we think playing games are fun because they are easy to do. But what is really so absorbing about them is that they let us believe that we can achieve great things with only a little amount of effort. So the lazy hypothesis is not that far off after all.

For all kinds of games that we play - on the computer, boards, cards  - we may have the illusion that we are in full control of how we want to play these games. Whether to move the pawn or the horse in a game of chess, for example, we think is our decision. But it is not.

As the saying "The house always wins" has always reminded gamblers, never mind how good you are at playing cards, and no matter how lucky on the slot machines, the casino will always get your money eventually. That is because card games and slot machines are designed to let you believe that you can win a lot of money for very little effort - even if you never do.

We might also unashamedly generalize our thoughts on gaming here to other sports - I mean the really physical ones like football, or tennis. Of course, we have always regarded sportsmen to be the shining exemplars of hard work. Footballers and tennis players must train hard for extensive periods of time, that we can never mistake them for average video gamers.
 
 But looking beyond the physical aspect, perhaps we can compare sportsmen to gamers.  After all, don't all sportsmen also believe that they can achieve great things with little effort. Of course it is not easy to actually play professional football, but in the end doesn't it all comes down to kicking the ball past the goal posts? You score a goal, you win the match, money and fame.

Scoring a goal gives such a rush of great feeling, even for the spectators. But after all those manic celebration, can someone remind us what a ball kicked into a net has achieved for all of us?

Alright, don't let me spoil your party. Even so I think my point is still valid. It is our nature to find the easiest way to get the most valuable things in life - be it picking the right number in the lottery to win some money, placing the pieces in chess to win some honor, or kicking a ball past the goal posts to win both money and honor.

The irony is that we end up spending more time and effort than how much we thought we would in playing these games and sports, only because of the illusion of how easy it would be to achieve the things we wanted through these activities in the first place. I can run a business, kill enemy troops, and build an empire, only with a few clicks of my mouse. But all I have done was to waste the time and energy, that I could have used to achieve those things in real life, in front of a laptop screen.

Well, borrowing Nietzsche's words, I'm only human, all too human.