doctor you are wrong

when deadly affliction arrives, its easy to turn away from the doctor and his good recommendation, hoping he is wrong, while praying to God that He will do something instead. yet when we get a flu, or headache or chickenpox, we take both medication and instruction from the same doctor, knowing we will get better from it and we simply thank God that it was only chickenpox. it is a habit that the religious, the superstitious and the uneducated alike suffer with. which of them can deny that in difficult times, they only place all hope in their God because there is no one else to put it in?

a woman with certain religious values would be most conflicted in a time of ectopic pregnancy, where she would struggle to choose abortion, as opposed to carrying the foetus to term but risk her own life instead. it would be reasonable for this woman and her husband to see another doctor for a second opinion if they didnt like to the first one, but no doctor will ever forget to remind her that the final decision is hers to make. because the gravity of her situation exceeds her faith in not only her doctor, but also in her own ability to make a good decision, it is only at this point where she truly puts her faith in God. and because her faith was placed in the wrong order, no decision is made.

if the situation was simpler: dengue fever perhaps. does even the most religious man with dengue fever reject a doctor and say "I will pray instead. God will heal me."? even if one man were to do this, how far would his fever have to go before he finally says "Doctor, help me. I will pray after."?

a third scenario puts a man at the window of a burning building. he has to jump into the firemen's safety net 10 floors below. does not his faith in the ability of fire to burn and kill him compel him to jump? or does he ask God which choice to take, stay and wait or jump now. it is precisely because of his faith in real fire and ability to estimate his own chances of survival by jumping that helps him decide his course of action. God only comes into the picture after the decision is made, when the man leaps off the building and says in his heart, "God, help me."

in one scene similar to the first, where expert advice is available, suppose a boy is stuck at the edge of a cliff, both hands hanging to a vine for dear life. a helicopter arrives with a rescue worker suspended below it. the rescuer says "give me your hand." the boy is unwilling because his faith in his own two hands tells him he cannot release the vine even from one hand. the rescuer says "i am your rescuer. release your hand or i cannot save you." it is a combination of the immediate fear of death, and the present trust in this rescuer who speaks with confidence that motivates the boy to release the vine.

thus many times in life, at a tough point we refuse to make a decision because we cannot comprehend the urgency of it, and that we do not fully appreciate the value of advice coming from someone whom we should admit, knows alot more about the situation. it is the failure of understanding of both these concepts which causes us, in the time we need the most help, to reject it from the people who are most able to provide it, while telling ourselves it is all okay, because God will do something about it. at the end of the day, we dont make any decision with the false belief that we can do no wrong if we do nothing.

yet with our knowledge of today, is religion in the name of ignorance truly acceptable?

a noble profession

i am one of the smaller group of people which has almost no desire to be part of the capitalist rat race of the modern city. on more than one occassion this has been pointed out to me to be to be a sign of weak ambition. on those days i nodded or looked away, admitting that such a statement was indeed factual. but after some conversation the other day with a couple of new friends on my vision of an ideal life in the village or rural countrysides, i only came to become more convicted of my position. if anything, i am less guilty for thinking this way. i realised that drive of ambition is not the source of but rather the equivalent of a desire for competition in the corporate world. in other words, if not wanting to join the cutthroat marketplace means i am weakwilled, i will accept that that title with no embarrassment.

after all, being on the other side of the fence, though strongwilled and in focus, would make me a type of human i would respect less than a dog. knowing myself full well, i am completely able, if i were to set my eyes on the ladder of modern success, to scale it easily while biting the legs of the dogs above me and kicking the heads of the dogs below me; my rational mind allows me to calculate the cost of a dog's life and if need be, allow some of them to fall off to their deaths once i quantified the profit from doing so. but it is simply because i would rather be an average human rather than a top dog--a simple comparison of my fundamental desires--that makes me choose the village over the city.

during the conversation last week i had the fortune of being reminded of the old adage of the greenness of pastures on the far side of fences, that the rural world has its own share of difficulties, that the struggle for money is replaced by the struggle for food. simply it seemed, it was a shift of market rather than a shift of job. i didnt have the wisdom that day to give an answer; getting out of a bias accusation is impossible without the help of a third party. but now that i am no longer in that conversaion, i do in fact consider myself a third party...and i once again discover that my previous statement about my different value system would suffice as a response--that because i detest the corporate struggle more than the so-called primitive one, id reasonably and logically choose to stay in a place where my rewards come from plain sweat rather than cunning.

true, good talents should never be wasted. no doubt, i possess the kind of mind, almost criminal if i was untethered, that could squeeze profit out of other minds just like a sucessful capitalist would. but today i am more and more disillusioned with the nectar of wealth and its corrupting properties and i see it happening daily to my city which prioriti$e$ talent over humanity under the euphemistic term meritocracy. everyone is nice only to the point where money is concerned--suddenly its sorry, but i have to or it is a tough time, it must be done. the only way to survive in the zoo is to become an animal.

sorry, id rather be a farmer in his field than a manager in his office.

voting for tolerance

many worry for the fate of humanity, especially the religious bunch. any modern day christian will be quick to inform you that the end is near because of growing immorality, loosening values and wider thought. if a doomed world is one that grows to empower itself rather than rely on God, then they are right.

but if i say that a succeeding world is one that causes a massive reproduction of human life and sustenance of that population via advancements in technology, law and philosophy, then like all good debates, the opponents are merely arguing around and about different definitions of the problem.

since we started recording history we have abolished slavery, criminalized inhumanity, granted women equal rights, welcomed the lgbts and so on. we have embraced rationalism--gone are the days of learned men being persecuted for delivering science in a manner that made pious men appear less apt at explaining the world. knowing what we know today, which sane man would say, "let us go back into the days where the gods ruled"? these are the same days where capital crimes were punished by stoning, where women were the property of men, slaves were symbols of of wealth to those who owned them, and a homosexual did not exist because it was better not to. what world is the world of the old where men trounced upon men with no compassion? are not the most beautiful religions of the world about compassion?

i detest any religious man who places his religion above the rest--he who uses his position to sequester and dominate the heathen peoples around him. what kind of peace are we trying to achieve by waging war for the sake of it? is it right for one religion to infiltrate the government? the workplace? the marketplace? how about we try love, compassion and tolerance before we try to "conquer" this mortal plane for our respective Gods? does your God want our big cities, tall buildings and our land, which he could likely destroy and rebuild in a day, or does he really want our freely-given hearts which he cannot destroy and rebuild in a day?

every man with a moral conviction would understandably stand firm in his views. such a man would also do his best to teach the others around him of his ways which he knows from his heart is true. but to what end does such a man push until he knows to stop, step back, and let the other man pursue his own convictions? if one woman is against abortion, at what point does she stop herself from preventing another woman from terminating her pregnancy? should one man be able to vote against another? throughout history the power of voting has been used as a force of good to free the imprisoned, rest the burdened and deliver justice to the helpless. in some cases it has been misused as a tool for one section of society to impose its will on the other.

it pains me when i hear a Christian state who should and shouldnt be allowed to go to Church and when i see the number of people who agree with him. it pains me when a woman says she will vote against abortion to prevent another woman from doing what could possibly be the best for her and her unborn child. it pains me when a husband says he owns his wife and subjugates her to his hypocrisy. it pains me when people who know nothing about death tell me stoutly that the death penalty should stay. opinions are unavoidable, and in many cases it is a sign of intellect. but coupled with the power to translate those opinion to action, the biggest failure of modern humanity is the use of democracy to restrict the minority rather than to liberate them.

the biggest pain is that i will not and cannot stop them. but what burns like a fire in my heart is my duty to the weak minority.

an old, unpublished piece on hate

3 may 2010, in response to seeing the phrase "i only bring out what is already within you."

i saw something today that made me think about hate and what it really means. now it's easy to get upset. it's easy to say who made you feel upset. x did. but heres the scoop: x doesnt own your feelings. there is a point somewhere along the line that we must define who is responsible for what.

do this: remember the last time you were in love with somebody. or maybe youre in love now. lets call that person y. remember y? when y was around, you were happy. you liked being happy. you like yourself when youre happy. ah, its all because of y. i love y. i love y because when y is around, i am better than when y isnt around.

now think about x. x did something. or wait. x made you do something. x made you say something. x made you feel worse than when x wasnt around. but is it really x's fault? is it possible that you hate x because x made you hate yourself? it is possible, isnt it? after all, what x did is forgiveable. but how x made you feel, is unforgiveable.

but if you love y for being able to bring out the best in you, it means you hate x for being able to bring out the worst in you. people around us have different abilities. some of them evoke parts of ourselves we want to see, and some of them materialise our shadows better and show us our ugly sides. realise now: neither x nor y created any part of you; they merely forced it out all on display. so who is to blame for the existence of that monster?

y constantly reminds us of why life is good. y reminds us why life is worth living. as social creatures we are in perpetual need for such reminders. far be it from me to trample on love or to trivialise it, but love is simply in the reminders. and just as love reminds us of our good side, hate reminds us of our bad side.

and that really is the crux of the whole issue with unfair hate. we hate x because x reminds us that we are capable of atrocities. heck, x might even remind us that we are atrocities. but x is there to keep our heads out of the clouds. x grounds us. just as y makes life fantastic, x makes life real. if hatred did not exist, we would not be capable of fully appreciating love.

brace for the incoming paradox. stop hating the people you hate, because the reason you hate them is only because you would rather not hate yourself. and that isnt fair to x.

the alternative is to be unfair, and hate x, for x wasnt fair to you in the first place. heck, the world isnt fair. maybe we should just love the people who make us happy and hate the people who dont. let us become vectors for the propagation of unfair hate. then we can all wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and see x, the person we hate.

fate of the species

we would expect that the early men back in the day were also able to conceive the notion of alliance over the option of tribal war for the purpose of progress in other areas. the idea of banding together for better survival is a precept from antiquity. the only thing that has changed over time is the size of this band. so while small families might have grouped together millienia ago, these days we are looking at numbers on the order of millions;remember the fascist era of the early 20th century.

the general idea of one leader uniting the masses against a looming external threat is a sweet one. yes, squabbles between sovereign entities are a tradition of very old, but neither the egyptians nor the persians nor the greeks possessed weaponry that could end the world--the kind of weaponry that causes us, in these times to frown and shake our heads at the thought of war instead of group up and thump our chest armor for the sake of protecting "our own". nationalism is the same today as it was 5000 years ago, yet even its purpose has come to pass now that we with our global connections can no longer deny that "their own" are just as deserving of peace, security and progress. it is without doubt that any nation with sufficient globalising exposure becomes less and less inclined to hostile inclinations towards fellow inhabitants of the globe itself (separatist nations being negative examples).

yet even within the most peaceful and so-called progressive nations i see cultural segregation causing inter and intrasocietal conflicts impeding a One Kingdom agenda. i discover myself wondering sometimes if it is even within the realm of possibility for the people of this planet to ever unite under one goal(ie. leader).  i find it extremely improbable if not impossible. now mass unification of the major religions culminating in a massive religious war of two or maybe even three parties--that is something i believe is rather possible, but for muslim and christian, negroid and caucasoid, conservative and liberal and man and woman to unite there must be a common threat large enough to compel a negation of longstanding differences and discrimination--a threat to humanity if you will. i am speaking of a hostile alien species. without this impetus, every prime minister or every president would only work for the benefit of his own country, every governor or duke, only his own state, every mayor only his own town, every parent only his own family.

every man, truly for his own self. fundamentally, this is the case, and it is a rule coming straight out of the animal world. but it is via advancement of a species that softens this requirement by enabling each individual to think for more individuals outside of himself, hence the advancing roles of self-leader->family leader->town leader->state leader->country leader etc. naturally, the inner conviction weakens as the role continues to advance, after all, who feels more compelled to die for his country rather than his family, or who would sacrifice his life and limb for a stranger rather than his friend? yet throughout the civilizations there have been a handful of superior individuals who were not only able but willing to lay themselves down for the sake of a purpose or role larger than themselves. some of these men started entire religions, some others created lasting ideologies. ironically, while their ideas were almost always with the intention to unite the people, because of the selfish limitations of the individual man, division also resulted. if history is to repeat itself for good, then some great man--or woman--will arise from the civilizations yet again to melt barriers and homogenise the people. but as history is famous for taking its time, and looking at the state of the world today, i honestly do not expect homogenisation within my lifetime.

assuming we have the foresight not to destroy ourselves with our weaponry, we will one day find it in us to set aside our petty rabble in the face of an enemy alien race we discovered with our technology, and then unite in arms to point those weapons in the same direction to ensure our survival. when that galactic war is over, the same dilemma would be applicable: will we ever unite with another sentient race to ensure survival? or would be attempt to eradicate each other with our terrible weapons? the scale will continue to increase, and nationalism will phase in and out with the times but it seems to me that every time it phases in we run the risk of destroying everything.

therein lies the paradox: uniting against a common enemy is trying to remove what could be part of one's larger self. unless we abandon the need to survive, we will forever struggle for it and forever run the risk of ending our survival itself.