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?

StreetLight Effect

The spate of terrorist attacks and senseless killings in the news media makes one feel like the world is really upside down. It brought to my mind the story of the 'streetlight key'.

The story goes that a man was looking for his car keys under a street lamp. An officer helped him but after a fruitless search asked him whether he was sure he dropped it at that spot where they were searching. The man replied he actually dropped it at the lot opposite the street. The officer was aghast and asked for an explanation to which the man replied "No but the light is much better here". This is now termed the "streetlight effect" where people search for whatever they are searching in the easiest way possible. Of course there are many versions of this story amended to suit different cultures or context and open to many interpretations.

Last week I met up with 2 sets of friends and I somewhat walk away with this feeling which I shared with my family "I think as we become older we become more opinionated". This is after seeing how some of my friends spoke so vehemently against LGBT and and even calling Obama a devil reincarnate. I don't support the pink dot movement either but I do not want to hold judgement if I do not know enough of their side of the story.

It seems to me Muslims who are advocating for a Caliphate maybe under the 'streetlight effect' to achieve their Utopia devoid of western decadence. But so is everyone who grasps onto their doctrines or religious teachings rigidly and is judgmental about other beliefs or systems without first trying to explore and understand a bit more. It is of course easier to hold onto the belief you have embraced all your life and cling onto them rigidly to fence off whatever doubts that may rear their ugly heads.

Alas I find the world is getting more and more polarized.

Now onto another version of the streetlight parable:
 One day a neighbor passing the Mullah's house saw him in his yard on his hands and knees searching for something.
"What is wrong? What are you looking for?"
"I have lost my keys!" Said the Mullah.
"Let me help you look." Offered the neighbor.
Nasrudin gladly accepted the neighbor's assistance.
Soon other helpful neighbors joined the search, and although the yard was rather small the search went on for nearly an hour. Finally the first neighbor to arrive said "Mullah, we have combed the yard thoroughly. Are you sure you lost the keys here?"
"No," replied the Mullah. "I lost them in the house."
Astonished and a little angry the helpful neighbor asked "Why on earth are we looking for them in the yard?"
The Mullah replied in exasperation, "Because you fool, there is more light here."

An interpretation I like about this version is that the key is inside our very own house; yet we search outside because it is dark and very difficult to search inside.

The 84th problem

Have you heard of the parable of the 84th problem. Once a farmer approached the Buddha to get some advice to address a host of problems he had to face. There was the problem with the weather affecting his crops, being either too wet or too dry. His wife though a good woman was constantly nagging him. On top of that his children seemed ungrateful and his neighbours were spreading rumours about him He looked up expectantly for solutions only to be told by the Buddha that he couldn't help him because life itself is filled with 83 problems. The farmer in dismay asked of what good then was Buddha's teachings. Buddha said he could however solve the farmer's 84th problem? The farmer asked what that was to which the Buddha replied, "the 84th problem is: You don't want to have any problem".

Today I visited my aunt who is 97 years of age. After a month's illness she was reduced to an unrecognizable half of her normal self. Extremely frail and unable to eat she seems to be near the end of her very long journey. I reflected on her lifetime of almost a century from what I know and what I had heard from my deceased mum. Life has thrown various challenges at her as a child and as a mother, only settling somewhat towards old age. I saw all the things happening in her life like the reeling of a motion picture. Yet I have always remembered her taking things in her stride. Even now lying at home in the hospital bed which seem large for her thin and feeble body, her face does not have the slightest semblance of any struggle.

The image of her shifting slightly in discomfort and half conscious of our presence lingers and it seems to me my aunt has always known Buddha's parable of the 84th problem instinctively all her life.

The Toxic Child Within.

Today's Sunday Times carries an article about damages toxic stress causes in children. It describes how a mother's affectionate attention can shoot electrical impulses to the developing neural circuits of an infant, strengthening their neural pathways and inciting new synapses to grow. This process develops the child's capacity to think, learn and process emotions. On the contrary constant neglect or  abuse results in toxic stress which not only impedes the child's learning capacity but may also affect his/her long term physical and mental health. Research has found that infants are very responsive to the emotions and social interaction around them. Chronic neglect or abuse or home violence impairs the child's social-emotional development whilst the child's constant feeling of helplessness can cause him to be depressed, withdrawn, apathetic, hyper-vigilant or angry well into adulthood.

Angry or withdrawn is the more noticeable character trait in some of the children I interact with at the children's home (mainly from dysfunctional families) . I wonder about those who do not have behavioral issues and are thus not presented for therapy. Could they also harbour long term anxieties or hyper vigilance or apathetic dispirit within them? Thus I am extremely patient with children from toxic background.

But then again even amongst us, the adults, how much of peoples' behaviour which we find difficult to tolerate are caused by toxic stress plaguing them since childhood? How many amongst us are so fortunate to grow up almost scar-less? Yet we don't empathize an adult with behvioural problems as much as a child. I remember on one occasion I was trying to deal with a complaint one subordinate lodged against another. I appealed to the complainant's empathy by remarking that his colleague came from a poor and frictional family, to which the complainant retorted that he too came from an impoverished family.

I have thought about why I find it difficult to tolerate bad or irrational adult behaviour even if I know the person has some emotional baggage; whilst my threshold for children misbehaviour is quite high. I guess when one looks at a child, one sees one's own inner child within oneself, feels the other child's pain as one's own pain carried silently over the years. Hence sympathy and the urge to comfort the child arise.

To forgive an adult on the other hand needs the abandoning of an egoistic self and the cultivation of true compassion. Perhaps it may help if we begin by imagining how we would have turned out if we have been born in his circumstances. Alternatively for me I can try to see the inner child within the adult, the child whose cries have been ignored and suppressed.