Earth in the Universe

Last Sunday's papers carries an article about a planet which can be described as planet Earth's twin, 1400 light years away. This gives hopes of life elsewhere in the vast universe. It is really mind blogging to think of our solar system as just one of billions of galaxies, and earth as just one of trillions of planets in the universe.

Turn a few pages and there is another headline news about Turkey joining the war against ISIS. In the mind some huge distortions seems to be happening, so much strife over a microscopic speck in the infinite universe.

 In a space ship that orbits the Earth 16 times a day, astronauts see 16 sunrises and sunsets each day. One astronaut remarks how it changes his view:
"The view that we all have a responsibility to leave this place a little better than we found it and that we are one human family riding through the Universe together on Spaceship Earth"
Astronauts are often struck by the smallness of the earth in space and the roundness of the Earth. It stirs them to think of World citizenship rather than National citizenship.

In a similar sense our microscopic obsession with our personal life also seems to be distorted in the great scheme of things. Our obsession with our body, our image and our list of social and material needs; as well as our expectation of what our family members need to possess or do to make our lives complete make us appear like wriggling microbes visible only through a microscope.

One astronaut described his experience as acquiring the "ultimate perspective". Another astronaut Ron Garan remarked, “You really get hit in the gut with this sobering contradiction between the beauty of our planet on one hand and the unfortunate realities of life on our beautiful planet for a significant portion of its inhabitants”. He went on to say, "There's a propensity to lose things in space, because of weightlessness. But it gives you a freedom that you really don't have on the Earth.....that freedom that you get from living in a three-dimensional world.”

So there is this perpetual tussle in life,  the gravitational pull of perceived reality that makes everyday routine so urgent and pivotal versus the occasional feeling of connectedness to the universe which seems so numinous. Then again it may not really be a tussle but more like an acceptance to live within both domain, such that when the going gets tough one just needs to pause and gaze at the stars in the vast skies, the universe, to gain perspective.

Yet another way to live

"There are so many ways to live"

I often find myself making this silent remark whenever I travel outside Singapore. This is especially so when I travel to a less developed country, a quieter city or to a land with a vastly different culture. Thus I told myself again whilst in a taxi horning its way through the labyrinth of Hanoi's old quarters and dodging surges of motorbikes from all directions, whilst walking with utmost care not to kick any low plastic stools along the pavements where the Vietnamese sit down for a 'pho' supper at roadside stalls and whilst being tossed about as if in stormy seas when lying in a sleeper train bound for Sapa. I would also make it a point to observe the faces of the people, trying to detect expressions if any of frustrations or content. Most times however the faces will show neither and just seem to say "It's all in a day's work. Today is like any other day".

One has to be very careful when crossing the streets in Hanoi as traffic rules are never observed. The motorbikes can suddenly appear from nowhere. The trick we have been told is to just cross at a steady pace when the traffic seems lighter and the motorists will avoid you. If you panic and suddenly quicken your steps you will confuse the motorists. So Hanoi teaches you literally to go with the flow. In the absence of rules and good public transport the only mode is the motorbike for women and teenagers alike and mindfulness is the name of the game.

From my short engagement with the tour guide who brought us down the country roads amongst rice terraces to visit a Hmong household I realized not everyone on this earth is so focused on timing. I told him at the start of the tour and repeated it along the way that I preferred to be back at the hotel by 4 in the afternoon. I needed time to refresh and have a quick bite before the transport picked us up at 6 pm for the airport. This young chap found it queer that I did not pause but kept walking when he was talking. At one point he requested that we paused for ten minutes in the middle of nowhere so that he could shared some information. Honestly I was puzzled why we could not talk as we walk; was that being rude and inattentive? Perhaps, he on his part might have been puzzled why I was so hung up about getting back strictly by a certain time. Needless to say he sent us back to our hotel half an hour later than we requested. Strange, many other people would have been more than glad to knock off earlier.

Many people would have been put off if their masseuses chatted amongst themselves disturbing the quiet that goes well with a massage. I was initially a bit annoyed by the light chatter when I went for a body massage. However the light banter punctuated by an occasional giggle soon lent a melodious spell that lulled the listener to drift into dreamland, a land where rules and benchmarks are rendered redundant.

Yet, another way to live.

Junior College

As expected no one really knows me. I don't know why I agreed to join a small group of 3 to the junior college 1973 cohort having a 60th Birthday bash. I told my friend I'll tag along and in its literal sense.

I thought I had better recall some names by going through the year book. After flipping through the pages with photos of various club activities, school events, prize winners, I really began to feel sad. It was indeed strange that after 40 years I was kind of reliving the teenage angst. I recalled those days when I was torn between trying to blend in and avoid looking awkward on the one hand and being blighted with green eyed envy of other youngsters who seemed to move with such ease and seemed as sure as themselves as the red blazers they wore against the grey uniform. I remembered feeling very alone in junior college and once wrote in my diary I was like the weeping willows that hanged over the school pond.

People came up to me "Yes, yes, I remember your face". "Yes, yes, I recognise you straight away, what's your name?" "Hey, isn't that XXX?" "Isn't that YYY".

Of course I didn't cared a damn about XXX and YYY now. Neither did I feel awkward even though my lip muscles felt a bit stiff from prolonged smiling throughout the evening. Honestly, catching up on lost years with people whom one are never close with doesn't really excite except for the wonder of how life offers diverse trajectories.

We recalled that it was the best college then, in fact the only one. We had the best teachers. We did modern history that no other pre-U school offered ( which actually stirred my lifelong interest in modern Chinese history and the Russian revolution). We also did D.H.Lawrence and Great Gatsby for literature,quite a forerunner in those days. Great stuff I now recall. I now remember learning a lot from the brilliant students especially during General Paper discussions. Yet the teenage angst overshadowed my memories of college life all these years, an example of how feelings always stays in the mind.

In one of his book, Cotzee once said "We have been given a chance to live and we have accepted that chance. It is a great thing to live. It is the greatest thing of all".

If at 17 I have the wisdom of age, I would have said "We have been given a chance to school here and we have accepted that chance. It is a great thing to school here. It is the greatest thing of all".

Always Lacking

"Consciousness is always predisposed to find something lacking because lack is intrinsic to the very meaning of every situation for any particular consciousness. This is why, according to existentialist philosophers, a consciousness, a person, can never be completely satisfied. A person will always interpret  a situation in terms of what it lack for him. If he is cooking, the meal lacks being cooked. If he is halfway through a movie, the movie lacks an ending so far. If the movie is poor and he does not care about the ending then his situation is lacking interest.  If he is tired he lacks sleeps (tiredness is lack of sleep). If he has just woken up and is ready for the day he lacks the things he hope to achieve that day and so on and so on.

In general a person always lacks the futures toward which is constantly heading, the future which gives meaning to his present actions and beyond which he hopes in vain to be fulfilled and at one with himself. Ever onward, the endless march of time, towards a future that is presently lacking, an absent future that will fall into past as soon as it is reached, a past with its own absent future. It seems that the endless march of time constantly cheats us of what we are, prevents us from becoming one with ourselves, but really, what we are is this endless march forward in time, creatures that can never become one with themselves.


-from How to be an Existentialist by Gary Cox


So true, so true.

We are always living in the past or in the future, never in the moment. Our concept of self is always in the context of time; past self, past pain, past happiness projecting into a want for future happiness, a future self. There is very little of the self living for the sake of "now" and living with "now".

Also there is always the feeling of either too little time to do so much (lack of time) or too much time to make it of value (lack of fulfillment). No wonder it is so hard to be happy because we are constantly saddled with the burden "to achieve a future state of total completion in which we no longer lack anything".

All boils down to "tanha" (Pali for craving) don't you think?