"For Once, It Is Untitled"

There are many things that can change the nature of a man. Amongst them would be love, in all its forms. Another would be a prison sentence.

Thankfully for most of us, it is the former that we find ourselves confronted with.

Thank you.


***

Another blog entry taken from Demented Reality.

Envy

Handsome, stylish and suave.

Intelligent, witty and funny.

His charm, his charisma, his personality.

Exuberant.

I'm just like him, except that I'm not just not like him.

He's just better than me in everything.

He sings better, he dances better, he excels in everything; I'm just a fading shadow feebly trying to emulate him.

I've known him all my life, and he's been closer than a brother. But as we grew up, I watched him outdo me. Watched him become a better man, a better person than who I could ever become.

Envy, jealousy. A rare emotion for me. Even for a pessimistic, perfectionist idealist like me, I know the meaning of "contentment" or "satisfaction", not because I read the dictionary more often - I am content.

But by saying that, I just contradicted myself, didn't I?

Envy - "discontentment or resentful longing aroused by another's possession or qualities".

AHA! DIS-contentment! How can I say I'm content now?


Envy, a rare emotion for me, because I live in a society where everyone's stuck with situations they had not wished for. I'm the only guy around who gets what I want. Yet, I'm jealous of this friend of mine.


The pressures of the world where everyone's chasing after material and superlatives. I'm a sucker, an "individual" with herd mentality.


"Life is a contradiction," I said.
"And you're a walking irony," a friend replied.
"Perhaps," I thought as I looked into the mirror.
"Cool T-shirt," I thought again, but the T-shirt says "NERD".

I thought I lived a happy life, until I decided to look at my "idol", my friend who outshines me. Oh, the bitter pain of jealousy, the greenery which ain't any crunchy fresh vegetable.


The "great irony" occurred when we talked last night.


"Wow man, I look at you with your girlfriend! You two are like so STEADY! Damn... Envy!" he told me.


I envy everything he has. And vice versa.


So now, I've stopped feeling jealous. I smile; gratefulness fills my heart. Now I wonder how I'm going to get along with the rest of the complaining world.

Observations of people

My three weeks here have made me realise more personalities than I'd care to know. Nevertheless, it's still amazing to see and interact with such a plethora of different personalities. First I'll introduce my roommate, Fiona, she's the most amazing girl ever, humble,smart, nice. Some other people I don't know but would really want to know more. Some weird( in my perspective) that I'd rather avoid yet would love to understand. People who look too highly upon themselves. People who put others down. People who talk to much. People who don't talk enough. People giving opinions without knowing what they're talking about. People who know but keep to themselves. Which are you? I wanna know you, I'll try not to judge. We're all here, finding ourselves, know it or not. You say you've found yourself? I don't think so.

So I challenge myself, to not judge or hold anyone in contempt. Learn from them. Know them. Understand them. "Wisdom is knowing you don't know anything"

-Angel-



*not an original Edenia post

On Love

It would be difficult, almost impossible, for a single individual like me to completely define love. For love reveals itself in different ways to different people. Here, though, I will try to take a general and objective view of love.

The concept of love is not new. It is as old as time itself. Since the beginning, we sentient mortals have sensed something in our social interaction and relationships, and called it love.

But what is love? Is it merely an emotion, as many have claimed? Is love just a great influx of passion and longing for someone or something, to die away eventually? Or is it more than just a feeling? Something more... divine, perhaps?

People say there are many kinds of love. An intense, erotic love of passion between newlyweds. Or a cooler, but more stable love between older couples. Or love between a father and his son, or a mother and her children. Or love between two friends that bind them together forever. Or love between a master and his servant, or a dog and its owner. Or complete, unconditional, divine love God has for his creations.

Which of these is love? Are they all love? Or are they all not love? Or are they all simply different aspects of love? Can any of them really define love?

But still, the base question remains unanswered: What is love? If someone were to suddenly ask me that question, my immediate answer would be that love is an emotional attachment that someone has for another person or object that causes that person to value the other person or object higher than himself/herself.

But even as I write that answer down, it seems rather empty and incomplete. Is love merely an emotional attachment? Isn't it more than that? Maybe. But I would also say that love is true unselfishness. However, I would be hard-pressed to say whether valuing someone or something above oneself is love itself, or merely an effect, or consequence, of love.

Taking the former as fact simplifies love as love=valuing someone/something above oneself. But choosing the latter brings up the answer that love=the cause of valuing someone/something above oneself.

So what is that 'cause'? Love, of course, is the answer. But still I am unsatisfied. What is love???

To be continued.

Questions to ponder:
1. Is love an action, or a reaction?
2. Can you love someone without liking him?

-Musings, by the ArchMage BenGarth

On Life, On Purpose

Life.

We live it.

The question: What is considered to have life?

Physically, a living being breathes and responds. But would a plant be a living being? Physically, perhaps.

Non-physically, something that has life also has purpose, thoughts, feelings. Now, would a plant be a living being? It breathes, it responds, it has purpose. So, it should be a living thing. Or should it not?

Let's take a look at one example. Let's say there's a soldier who had been trained to kill, to obey, to move on primeval battle instincts ever since it was a child. He had been taught not to question, not to make his own decisions, not to make any friends, not to have second thoughts despite his own feelings.

So, the soldier breathes, responds (to a certain extent), has purpose, thinks (although only what he's been trained to think of) and has feelings (although he has no permission to entertain them). Well, does he have life?

Physically and non-physically, I say yes.
But all the same, he has no life.

No freedom. No friends. No loved ones. No choice. No self.

No life.






Life.

We live it.

The question: What is considered to have life?

A plant breathes, responds, has purpose, but does not think or feel. Nonetheless, it is doing what Nature dictates. Now wouldn't this plant be considered to have life?

Hmm....



footnote:
erm, this just random scribblings... trying to emulate jw3rn's posts which have kuasa pengangkat bulu roma

Poignant Representations

Questions are many
Answers are few

Dilemmas are many
Thinkers are few

Choices are many
Makers are few

Paths are many
Walkers are few

Truths are many
Speakers are few

Words are many
Meanings are few

If the corrupt are here
Then the questions overflow

If the greedy are here
Then the dilemmas are pointless

If the guilty are here
Then choices are defunct

If the lost are here
Then paths are useless

If the twisted are here
Then truths are futile

If the liars are here
Then what are words?

footnote:
These are the words of my own design. I speak from my heart, and it has nothing to do with Edenia. But it has a slight ancient tang to it, that's why it's here.

On Life

What is life? What's the difference between something that's alive and something that's not?
Consider an insect, say a fly. When it buzzes around your head and disturbs your concentration, you would not doubt that it is alive. More so when it bites you and flies off, while you mutter a curse and rub the sore spot. But compare it to a rock, say a small piece of granite. No one who's sane would claim it's alive. It doesn't move. It just sits there and does nothing. Yet when the rock becomes part of a rock golem that's trying to kill you, I'm sure you'd no longer think of it as "unalive". How can you, when you're fighting against it for your life?

So what's the difference between a rock an a fly? Well, one obvious difference is their level of activity. A fly can buzz around your head all day. A rock can't. But does activity signify life? Can you call something 'alive' just because it moves about and does stuff? It's true that everything that's alive does some kind of activity. Trees, birds, plants, animals, humans, even coral reefs, they all do SOMETHING. But more importantly, they do that something by THEMSELVES. A rock thrown against a wall is active. But that activity does not come from within. A fly, on the other hand, will buzz around you without you having to throw it into the air or flap its wings for it. Life therefore, must have INDEPENDENT ACTIVITY.

But this does not define life. The equation Life=Independent Activity makes no sense. Rather, independent activity is the RESULT of life, not the cause. So , to understand life itself, we must examine the REASON behind independent activity. Why do flies buzz around our heads? Why do trees grow? Why do animals eat and excrete? Why do humans jot down meaningless words on paper? Hmm. The reasons vary, but one thing underlines it all: PURPOSE. A rock has no purpose of its own. A rock golem does: to protect, to attack, or to serve. A dead fly has no purpose, or rather. it has accomplished or failed in its purpose. A living fly has purpose: to survive and reproduce. The same goes for every other living creature.

The equation Life=Purpose does make sense. Something that's alive is something that has a purpose, or a will of its own. Life has a goal, a target. Everything that acquires a purpose, a goal and has the means to achieve it independently can be said to be alive. What do I mean by the
latter half of that sentence? Well, think about it. A rock may have a purpose and a will of its own. No one knows. The rock may want to reproduce and multiply and move about. But it does not have the MEANS to do so. Therefore it is still not alive. A fly, however, is able to survive and reproduce on its own without help. Therefore it is alive.

Ah now, Life=Purpose does bring up something interesting. I would say purpose=will=what something needs/wants. A rock golem's purpose is small: to serve another. A fly has a bigger purpose: survive to reproduce. Ditto for plants, bacteria and other low-level lifeforms. But as life becomes more complex, so too does its purposes. Consider bees. Each has an individual, different purpose. The only purpose of a worker bee is to collect food. The only purpose of a soldier bee is to protect, the queen to reproduce. Yet collectively they have a higher purpose: to manipulate their environment and maintain a great hive so that their basic purpose, to survive and reproduce, can be better fulfilled.

But move up the life level/food chain some more and you'll see more purpose. Lions want to survive and reproduce, but they also need to form family units, prides, with each individual needing a place in the pride. In other words, social organization. All higher level life forms, in this sense, compete for POWER. Male bucks fight, as do male monkeys, male lions, male kangaroos, and male (and female) humans. But sentient beings are unique: we decide our own purpose. We can want everything or nothing. We can desire world domination, or fame, or wealth, or maybe just simply love. Maybe underlying all this is the basic purposes of surviving and reproducing. But it is clear that sentient creatures have gone beyond that. We can choose our own purposes. Why, some of us even go against the basic instincts of surviving and reproducing by willfully commiting suicide or deciding not to have kids. So sentient beings have a higher level of purpose. Therefore, if Life=Purpose, can we not say that sentient creatures are more 'alive' than other creatures? Are we not on a whole different level of Life compared to other creatures? Maybe the hierarchy goes like this: Lower life forms are the Least 'alive' having the least complex purposes, reptiles are more 'alive', mammals still more, and sentient creatures, having the most complex purposes, are the Most 'alive'.

Anyhow, life= purpose brings up yet another question: Why life? Or rather, why purpose? Or what is the purpose of having a purpose? Why do plants and animals want to survive and reproduce? Why do sentient beings search for their own purposes? Why live at all? A much more powerful question, don't you think? Maybe the answer lies in the ORIGIN of life. But that's another story altogether....

-Musings by the ArchMage BenGarth