Wanderlust

Every now and then, I get bitten by the wanderlust bug.

I feel the urge to drop everything that I am doing and just book a ticket for somewhere far away. It could be Tibet, Nepal, Switzerland, Europe or even Papua New Guinea.

The hum-drum of daily living gets to me very often. I get bored with the monotony of daily commute, work in the office, the same people that I meet day in and day out. The lack of variety pricks my soul like a sharp thorn on a rose. Life seems beautifully smooth-sailing on the surface but the undercurrents reek of boredom.

There is nothing like the adrenalin rush that one gets from waiting to board the plane for a new destination. The uncertainties, the unknowns, the mysteries that beckon to the traveller. There is excitement that lies in the anticipation of the new and potentially dangerous.

Sitting in the plane, gazing out into the white bolster-like clouds and clear blue skies, one gets into a mental zone not too different from meditation. Your mind expands in its virtual horizons and the attachment to one-self fades into the background, replaced with a serene calmness that cannot be easily explained.

It is similar to standing on a mountain cliff-edge and staring out into the open fields thousands of feet below one's feet. It is akin to lying down on a patch of grass at night and gazing at the thousands of glinting stars that dot the dark heavens.

One gets the feeling that he is so small, so minute compared to the greatness of the universe, of the heavens, of earth. And for that brief moment, the troubles and problems that had just a while ago seemed so large and insurmountable become trivial and simplistic.

The wanderlust bug, if it has a physical form, would be a multi-coloured insect that has a hundred wings and a pointed almost-invisible needle with which it would sting its unwary victim. The poison that it would surreptitiously inject into the person is far-reaching and penetrates deep within his psyche.

Once bitten, the person feels a compulsion to take leave of everything routine and mundane, and seek new pastures, new hunting grounds, new sights and sounds.

Be it the ancient stones of Stonehenge, the cavernous dining rooms of old castles, or even the awe-inspiring Niagara Falls, the novelty of such experiences tempts one with rejuvenating freshness.

Like the mystical siren that drew many sailors to their watery deaths, such is the danger and enigmatic lure of the wanderlust bug.

Marriage - Stability versus Exploration

There are two conflicting forces in every person's mind. The first is the desire for stability and constancy. This arises from the feeling of security that one has when one's life is stable and turbulence is kept to a minimum. The second force is the desire to explore and find new grounds. This arises from the individual's need to seek better and more optimal conditions than status quo.

Whether it is in one's marriage or his place of residence, the two forces present themselves quite remarkably in the aspects of behaviour and thought processes.

The notorious seven-year itch, for example, is the clearest manifestation of this unrelenting struggle that takes place. A couple happily married for a number of years suddenly goes through a rough patch when the husband or the wife is caught in bed with a third-party. This can even happen to church-going and God-fearing folks who seemingly exude exemplary self-discipline and control in their daily living.

The explanation of this phenomenon is rather straight-forward. When a couple first gets married, the relationship is in a state of flux as both are trying to accommodate to the new lifestyle, to each other's needs and wants. This state of flux, ironically, creates dynamism and excitement, and is known as the honeymoon period that primarily features discovery and adjustment.

After around two to three years, the initial thrill dies down and is replaced by a more sombre assessment of the new situation where two individuals with differing likes and wants are supposed to co-exist under one roof. Without the excitement that is generated from discovery, the relationship suddenly loses a lot of its colour; it feels almost like the 3D movie that one has been watching has turned into a black-and-white film with mono-audio.

In this period, husband and wife begin to work through their differences and establish a new common ground. Each gives up part of his or her own personality in order to fit into a new shared lifestyle. A significant percentage of the married population fails to achieve this amalgamation and these couples go their separate ways during this time because of the reluctance and resistance to the personal sacrifices needed.

Should a marriage survive this stage, the couple gets a few more years of peace and harmony - also known as the quiet calm before a storm.

The human mind desires stability and constancy because of the security they bring. Adequate food, pleasing companionship, sex without much pursuit, etc. However, a few years of such monotonous serenity gives rise to the subconscious desire to seek newer (and perhaps more optimal) grounds, find new prey, source for fresh sources of excitement. This is wired into our brains because of the hidden pressure towards evolution.

Men and women begin to flirt with friends and acquaintances of the opposite sex, sizing them up for potential escapades and perhaps even as alternative/replacement spouses. They get embroiled in one-night stands and fleeting sexual encounters. They get drawn into surreptitious affairs. For some this lasts for another few years, for others this phase lasts longer. The exact duration depends on the constraints that are existent in the person's social and cultural environment.

Many marriages break up in this phase due to the tremendous stress generated by the revelation or of the affairs coming to light. Those marriages that survive this phase usually do so because the individuals do not get past the point of fantasy and play out their visualisations of escapades and affairs, or if they do and get caught, their spouses are willing to forgive them due to various reasons.

Ultimately, the insights into the behaviour of the parties in a marriage at various stages of the relationship allow us to understand more of the underlying physiological and mental forces at work.

Relativity

Mention the term Relativity and many would immediately think of the great thinker and scientist Albert Einstein. Ask anyone you know what the term Absoluteness means to him and you would probably draw a blank look. In the post-war years, familiarity with the term Relativity has become widespread, even among the non-academics. The connotations of the term are equally well-known. It brings to mind a blackboard filled with arcane mathematical scribblings and of the wild-haired mathematician scratching fervently at the board with a well-worn chalk bit.

To us, the common folk, Relativity is a concept for the academics, the elite. It involves a super-potent dose of mathematics and an excruciatingly pained and talented logical brain. Few venture into the realm of Relativity if they do not need to present a PhD thesis paper on it. Thus, it is the greatest irony that this supposedly academic concept is one that deals with our everyday living. Similarly, Absoluteness, its relatively (sic) unknown sibling, is quite a stranger to us. The reason why I am writing about these two is that I believe they play a very important role, a keystone in fact, in the movement towards an understanding of ourselves and our own existence.

From the time that we attain a basic awareness of ourselves – our bodies, emotions, thoughts, etc – and our surroundings (people included), we already possess a rudimentary understanding of Relativity. This extends into what psychologists term Empathy. Through Empathy, we are able to put ourselves in the shoes of others and imagine what it would be like to see through another person’s eyes and hear through his ears. This basic understanding enriches our awareness such that we are not confined to only our own minds and bodies. We are able to sense another entity relative to ourselves and vice-versa.

Unfortunately, this understanding is not well-developed for many of us. Like all other personal characteristics and traits, the grasp of Relativity remains status quo or even diminishes when we do not stretch it actively. Empathy is the most direct and somewhat visible extension of this understanding. In the course of one’s life, his Empathy rises and falls based on his personal experiences. A life that is reflective and contemplative allows the individual to focus on expanding his awareness outwards from his core. A self-centred life is filled with activities that pulls one inwards towards his core.

Since it is visible, Empathy is therefore one of the best gauges of one’s current grasp and understanding of Relativity. You may have encountered individuals who seem to be perpetually wrapped up in their own selfish little worlds. These people have little Empathy and have difficulty understanding the pain and feeling that others are experiencing. 

Highway of Life (Introduction)

Introduction

For many years, I struggled with my desire to write about life and the multitude of opinions and ideas that have accumulated in my mental closet over the years. That desire has waxed and waned with the passing of the seasons but never has it once taken leave of my mind fully. The cynic would call that a result of a burgeoning ego; the pragmatic would deem it a waste of precious time and energy. I have never really worried myself with the definition of the underlying reasons for this tendency. It has always been a subconscious pull, a dull hum that seems to easily fade into the background yet which never really goes away. 

If there is a need to give a name to this, I would term it my calling.

The world today is fraught with complications and complexities. It is progessively growing more violent, more aggressive. That technology has grown leaps and bounds has not helped in mitigating the turbulence that is plaguing our planet. Weapons are becoming more potent by the day. We now see technology manifesting itself as death and destruction, what with the brilliant minds of a large number of our elite scientists being channeled to the development of tools and mechanisms meant to kill, maim and restraint our fellow beings. 

By and large, the world has become desensitised to the devastation that we wreak upon our own kind. We have become unfeeling to the damage that we unleash on our home planet. In our self-centred pursuit for pleasure and physical satisfaction, we think little of excessive consumption of our natural resources of oil, trees, water and land. Generation after generation, children who grow up into the decision-makers of our civilisation are educated, both consciously and subconsciously, to emphasise more on sensual gratification. The extent at which communications is expanding via the Internet has accelerated the degradation of moral values as well as the lop-sided shift of the fundamental concept of good and evil, and of right and wrong.

It was not with a holier-than-thou mentality that I have written this blog. I am one of the new generation. I bear the same responsibility towards the world and the universe as all others of this time period. This set of writings is, if you may so call it, my contribution to my fellow beings. It is a consolidation of the perspectives that I have collected over the last thirty years, a compilation that has been filtered so that the ideas contained within are easily understood. This blog is not meant to be a monologue. You will have your own ideas and concepts; all I ask is that you maintain open-mindedness in order to have an unbiased and unprejudiced read of the writings. That, afterall, is the whole reason why you are reading this blog in any case.

In the last section of the writings, the ways in which I can be contacted with regards to this blog (and any other things in life) are detailed. I would love to hear and learn from your perspectives on the various issues that have been discussed in this blog.

With this, I wish you a good read.

The Philosophy of Driving (Part Two)

Driving is a very interesting activity. In part, it is because the behaviour of road users in a country is highly reflective of the culture, lifestyle, value system and mindset dominant there. By observing the conditions on the roads, you will be able to get a feel of how life in the country generally is. When I was in Italy, I had to exercise extra care when I crossed the roads. Traffic was so chaotic that as someone walking on the sidewalk, I was conscious of how vulnerable I was as a pedestrian. There was so much pent-up anger and loud explosive behaviour (indiscriminate blaring of the horns, lane-cutting, speeding) that I could almost see it hanging like a stifling fog in the air.

Another point about driving which makes it so interesting is that (as I mentioned in my earlier post) many aspects mirror our daily living. For example, in a traffic jam on the expressway, we can only move on helplessly inch by inch. The best we can do is to hope for the next exit to come up sooner so that we can take it out of the congestion. This is so similar to what many of us are feeling in life - about education, about work, about finances, etc. We feel so constrained, frustrated and helpless because there is no exit appearing on the horizon yet. We are moving but only inch by inch, day by day. As a result of this, the behaviour that we exhibit on the roads therefore is an extension of, albeit perhaps an exaggerated one, our behaviour off the roads.

Combining the above points, driving allows one to gain an insight into human psychology and also understand more about the limitations of our system and the effects of such restrictions. It allows us to see in full vibrant color the evil of Man, of how someone can deliberately knock down another in a fit of anger, as well as the innate compassion in us e.g. stopping just to help a fellow motorist change his tyres. It lets us see how the system is a vicious cycle of cause and effect, of action and reaction. The anger that we inflict on the motorist next to us gets transferred to the third person through him. It then moves on to the fourth and fifth, and so on and so forth. Like a ripple on the surface of a lake, anger gets transmitted from one driver to the next almost magically. When it reaches a critical mass in the system, we start to see crazy behaviour emerging on the roads - rash lane-cutting, cutting in front of another and then e-braking - and correspondingly, multi-car chain collisions which was quite a rarity many years ago.

Your example of the incident when you were a P-Plater highlights the illusion of Good and Bad, Right and Wrong. These are labels which we apply to things that happen to us, people whom we interact with, situations that arise in our daily living. How we apply them are based on our experiences, our upbringing, our thought processes. Each and every person has his or her own ideas of the above. That which is good to one may not be the same to another. Something that is wrong to you may be totally right to another person. Our definitions are forged and shaped largely by the society that we grew up and live in.

It is the clinging to the absolute Good and Bad, Right and Wrong that exists in our minds, coupled with the self-righteous obsession with our human rights, that many conflicts arise today. We fight for what we think is Good and Right, oblivious to the fact that others may have differing perspectives. We condemn that which is Bad and Wrong, unaware that there are those who hold the same thing in the highest esteem. This thinking, left unchecked in society, snowballs into intolerance and from that discrimination and disharmony arise.

I will stop here for now but if there is anyone who would like further sharing, please let me know and I will do so.

The Philosophy in Driving

The taxi-driver was probably sleepy or dazed from long hours of driving. There have been many occasions where I have encountered taxi-drivers cutting dangerously into other lanes, overtaking and then e-braking for a passenger pick-up, and even reversing at high speed on main roads. Whenever I see this happening, I am tempted to wind down my window and scold them for such foolish behaviour. During those times that I actually drove up to such errant drivers, I saw that they were old uncles with white or grey hair and had a dazed look on their faces which probably was a result of long hours of driving on the roads.

There was once I took a taxi after sending my car for servicing and happened to meet a taxi-driver from Batam. He came to Singapore once a week and would drive non-stop for five days before going back. I was surprised when he mentioned that and asked him if that meant he had minimal sleep during his stints in Singapore. He answered that he would drive for 18 hours straight each time and then grab a couple of hours' rest in a carpark in between. That was the way he maximised his earnings. I felt sad and angry at the same time - sad because of the tough life he had, angry because he was obviously putting other road-users in danger due to his actions. His driving was erratic and he had difficulty keeping his eyes open. I think he might have just fallen asleep at the wheel if I had not been keeping him awake with the conversation.

As I got off the taxi, I suggested to him that he try to get more rest and have shorter driving intervals. He gave me a weak "you don't know what I'm going through" smile and then drove off.

I have been guilty of having high expectations on the roads when I am driving. I have the tendency to think/feel that all drivers are supposed to be perfect beings - fully rested, alert with quick reactions and capable of responsible decisions on the move. Thus when others do not behave in the "correct" manner e.g. road-hogging or blatantly talking on the phone without any hands-free kit, I would get angry at them. Each time I get angry, I would think of the incident with that taxi-driver from Batam and then remember that not every driver has the luxury of being fully-rested and alert on the roads. The roads mirror our lives. There are many drivers who have little choice (from a certain perspective) when it comes to driving. Delivery men, taxi-drivers, despatch riders for example. Perhaps they would prefer another lifestyle, another job that does not require them to be on the roads 12 to 16 hours a day. Those long hours sap their energy and like any other human beings, they behave erratically when exhausted.

Buddha taught "我不入地獄, 誰入地獄". The rough english translation is "if I do not go to Hell, who should?". I first heard of this saying when I was in primary school and I took it at face value. I thought it was a peculiar saying - why should I go to Hell in other people's stead? As I grew older, my experiences allowed me to reflect further on this teaching and I came to the realisation that it was not the going to Hell that mattered. It was the attitude that one had in life which was key, and which was what this teaching is trying to focus on. Today, the world influenced by western thinking emphasises a lot on liberty and human rights. The right to speak, the right to act, etc. It is all about freedom that the individual should have. In a twisted manner, freedom has become synonymous with self-importance. "I" am the most important.

The problem with such thinking is that the world becomes a self-centred place. Everyone looks out only for himself. If you are infringing on my rights, you are committing a grave and heinous wrong. Buzz off. This kind of thinking is the anti-thesis of "我不入地獄, 誰入地獄" and I believe it is one of the main reasons for social breakdown and decadence. Again, using driving on the roads as a mirror of life - I have been driving for decades. In the early days, people were patient and gave way when you signaled to move into their lanes. Today, drivers speed up to close the gap when they see your lane-change indicator. How has this come about? When the self-centredness that is in human nature is not countered by the innate compassion that we have, it becomes the poison that spreads through the community. Without awareness, there is no living. Without awareness, the innate compassion cannot be awakened. We become selfish automatons that are concerned only about self and aspects which are closely associated with self.

As a society, the focus on meritocracy has led to the proliferation of self-centred mindsets. I am capable therefore I deserve the rewards. You are incompetent therefore you deserve to be in a state of poverty. While meritocracy has served the needs of society by motivating individuals to strive for progression, we have failed, as a society, to recognise that it is a double-edged sword like many other things. The positive aspects come with the negative as a package. In exalting the positive aspects, we turned a blind eye to the negatives which have been given free play to grow deep roots into our society. The self-centredness that comes forth from these negatives has become the root of many social problems that we are facing - the lack of graciousness, inconsiderate behaviour, hanging of bras in lifts, punching of bus drivers, playing loud music in the trains. These behaviour are symptomatic of a society that is like the spoilt child who we see in shopping centres screaming and wailing because he is not getting things done his way. He is given the latest technological gizmos but as morality and ethics have not been engrained in him through education, he selfishly uses technology for his own benefit only.

Meritocracy has to be tempered with compassion which can be awakened only with the right exposure to moral teachings and ethics. Without the tempering effects of compassion, the negatives of meritocracy will wreak havoc on society. Without compassion, our society will become one solely focused on economic numbers, getting into the best schools, becoming first in school, etc. Hard and unfeeling, cold and passionless.

The Sin of Pride

Among the mortal sins of human nature, Pride is the one that is closest to Ego. In fact, they are so close that at many times, it is difficult to distinguish between the two. Pride creates and prolongs one's attachment to self. Ego's "I think therefore I am" is a precursor to the feeling and thought "I am the most important thing in the universe". Pride extends that sensation by producing emotional euphoria when you do things to boost that view.

Status, power and control are three of the primary offshoots of Pride. A proud person demands status. Achieving and sustaining status satisfies the hunger that Pride invokes constantly in him. The feeling of power and control stokes the Pride in the individual and pushes it to even greater heights. Pride, as with all other mortal sins, traps the individual in a vicious cycle of hunger, satisfaction and expansion. Each act triggered by Pride results in more Pride being produced.

The key to overcoming Pride is to first recognise it. It may sound trivial but recognising it can be the most difficult part of conquering Pride. The reason for this difficulty is largely due to closeness that Pride has with our Ego and self. It is so close to us that we are often not able to see Pride separate from our self.

To recognise Pride and be able to differentiate between Pride and self, the individual needs to be aware of the thoughts and feelings within himself. Where is the root of that joyous feeling that I had a moment ago? What gave rise to that sensation of grief yesterday? What is the reason for me feeling happy today and angry tomorrow? For most individuals, emotions come and go as quickly as the morning breeze arrives and departs. Without awareness of how, when, what, where and why emotions develop and fade, it is not easy to recognise the source of these emotions and consequently the root of these emotions. The unaware individual does not learn much, if anything at all, from each rise and fall of emotion. Just as a stone produces a ripple on the surface of the lake into which it is cast, the effects fade quickly just as the ripples diminish.

Why do I feel good when someone praises me? What is it in me that produces the happy feeling that I get when my friend compliments me on my dressing today? How does failing an examination make me feel upset and inadequate?

As we delve deeper into the causes and effects of our emotions, we will realise that a lot of these are produced entirely within ourselves. Things that happen around us are only triggers. That which is in us triggers our reactions in mind, heart and body. The questions above lead us towards the realisation that Pride is an independent aspect of us which is responsible for a lot of the fluctuating emotions that we experience.

Pride can bring us to the top of the world in how we feel after certain success. It can also crush us and hurl us into a bed of iron nails when we fail. As we contemplate and reflect with the right attitudes and desire (to weed out Pride and vanquish it), we tighten the circle around the beast. With sufficient cultivation, we will be able to define clearly for ourselves what Pride is in our hearts and minds.

Each individual's Pride is different. It may be a huge armoured monster for one while for another it is a slimy serpent. We need to recognise its shape and size so that we are aware of how it moves within us and as a result be able to know the harmful influences it has on our thoughts, feelings and actions.

It is only after we have fully and clearly recognised Pride that we can effectively counter it. By knowing what it looks like and how it shifts itself within us, we can act against that which it produces. For example, if Pride makes us feel all-important when we receive praise, we work against Pride by focusing on Humility (the anti-thesis of Pride). We tell ourselves that the success for which the praise was given is a result of everyone working together and not just

through our own efforts.

If we fail and feel miserable, we remind ourselves that we have tried our best and that the only thing that has been hurt is our Pride (which we are trying to overcome in any case!). When we first start to act against Pride, we may not have instant success given the closeness it has with our self. However, persistence will allow us to gradually increase the number of mini-triumphs that we have against the beast. Eventually, the cultivated individual will be able to rein in Pride so tightly that the damage it can do via his thoughts, feelings and actions is highly limited.

Ego and the Seven

For the next seven posts, I will be writing about the seven deadly sins of human nature. If you have watched the movie "Seven" starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, you should be quite familiar with these mortal sins that all human beings are born with - Pride, Wrath, Lust, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, Envy. Today's post focuses on Ego, the core of human consciousness and mother of all the deadly sins.

From a very young age, a physically able child knows how to fight for his own survival. In an environment where food is scarce and there are other creatures vying for the limited food, the toddler intuitively grabs it for his own consumption. Eating is a basic need of survival and it is from this that we can become most aware of the in-born self-centred tendencies of men. The human psyche drives the thirsty and the starved to feed before thinking of anything else. If an individual has not been cultivating his awareness, he will not have anything with which to recognise and combat this intense drive.

Ego operates at the core of our very existence. It generates the desires that we have for things that we deem essentials - food, water, shelter. Ego is also responsible for the birthing of higher level wants (which are often and conveniently relabeled as needs) of sex, pleasure, recognition, power, status and control. The need to satisfy the pulsating hunger that Ego constantly produces is overwhelming from the very moment we are conceived. In the supposedly safe environment of a mother's womb, twins and other multiples compete for the finite amount of nourishment that is available to them. Even at such an early stage in life, the foetus fights for his own survival.

At birth, we wail for the attention of our parents and scream for milk, water and protection. As toddlers, we clamour to be loved and pampered. As school-going children, we vie with our friends and playmates for popularity and friendship. As adolescents, we compete with our peers for recognition and acceptance by the social groups we participate in and from members of the opposite sex. As adults, we fight for our promotions and salary increments in the corporate

world.

We are literally born into self-centredness and selfish behaviour. Left unchecked, the wailing baby grows up into a screaming toddler into a demanding child, into a rebellious teenager, into an unreasonable adult. The awareness that is required for the individual to recognise his human traits and the weaknesses that are woven into these traits is not guaranteed by his genetic heritage and upbringing. While the seed of awareness is present in almost every single human being, it sprouts differently in everyone of these individuals.

For some, the seed sprouts early in childhood and flourishes quickly to integrate into the bedrock of one's conscience. For others, awareness does not come about until adulthood when suffering triggers its bursting from the seed. There are yet others for whom awareness is but a momentary and fleeting sensation on their death-beds.

The ego that is untempered by awareness expands rapidly to fill any available space in one's heart and mind. The ego leads the uncultivated individual into thinking that he is all-important, all-powerful and everything that the universe needs. The bus passenger who elbows his way through the packed bus assigns to his own time the greatest of importance. The driver who overtakes and cuts into other lanes indiscriminately does so because his own journey is the most crucial one on the roads. The manager who refuses to give the rest a chance to speak in the meeting lives with the perception that his views shape the world and the entire universe.

From these simple but ubiquitous examples, we see the burgeoning swell of Ego in the form of the first mortal sin - Pride.

The Relative Nature of Things

The concepts of good and bad, right and wrong take form within us as we grow up. The experiences that we encounter, the environment that we live in as well as the people who are around us contribute to the shaping of what we deem is good and bad, right and wrong. A tribesman born into a society that practises cannibalism will grow up thinking that the practice is perfectly acceptable. It therefore falls within the boundaries of what he deems good. Another person who grows up in the modern civilised world is unlikely to subscribe to the notion of cannibalism as benign social behaviour. This individual has a different set of definitions for good and bad.

An action, event or entity without an observer capable of philosophical thought is neither good nor bad. The philosophical observer labels the item in view, assigning the tag of 'good' or 'bad' to the observed based on his own set of values and markers. On a social level, the value system is generally common across individuals. As a result, the definitions of good and bad are also fairly similar since they usually extend from the individual's value system. The individual's value system has a strong effect on his thoughts and behaviour. He makes decisions based on his own ideas of right and wrong, good or bad. His thoughts run along the markers that arise from his value system. He performs actions based on his ideas and thoughts.

A tribesman would not fit well into our civilisation because his value system is different from ours. Consequently, his actions are likely deviate from our social norm and therefore be unacceptable to us. For example, if he breaks into a mortuary and starts eating the flesh of the bodies stored there, our immediate reaction would be that of disgust and fear. The tribesman, on the other hand, may chastise us for the apparent wastage of food when he sees us burying and cremating our dead! From our perspective, he is wrong. From his view-point, we are incorrect.

The value system of an individual changes over time as he is exposed to different influences in his life. These changes propagate to his thoughts and ideas, and eventually his actions and behaviour. The value system of a society or community is the amalgamation of the value systems of the individuals constituting the groups. As the individual value systems change, the overall social value system changes as well. For example, walking around almost-nude on a beach, barely covered by tiny slips of cloth (read: bikinis and g-strings) would have been completely unacceptable behaviour in the 18th century in England. In present day England, anyone who condemns such behaviour would be called a prude.

The world today is fraught with conflicts that result from intolerance and a general lack of awareness of the fact that different social groups (e.g. communities and countries) have different practices and beliefs that come from their own value systems and beliefs. Each group, through the multitude of influences that have shaped its value system, has its own collective notion of good and bad, right and wrong. When groups are unyielding in their beliefs, tension increases and often leads to conflicts and bloodshed. In order to reduce such conflicts (and the resultant pain and unhappiness), it is crucial for all to gain awareness and understanding of the concepts stated above so that we may grow to become more tolerant and open-minded. Then and only then can we all move towards a peaceful co-existence in this world.

Good? or Bad?

I have a friend who is a social worker. An extremely motivated lady who dedicates much of her life to help those in need, sacrificing her time and money just to lend cheer to those who are not as well off as her. On weekends she visits old folks who stayed by themselves in the older housing estates (usually one-room flats) and brings them food and money. Though what she can do for each individual is limited by her finite resources, her spirit is indomitable in rendering her help.

One day, she visited a particular family for the first time. The nucleus was made up of the parents and two young daughters. She spent more than two hours talking to them and trying to understand their situation. Though she knew that happiness can exist even in an improverished state, she was still pleasantly surprised to find that the two young daughters were playing happily with what little they had. As she tried to get to know them better, she found that they had little realisation of what other children of their age knew - Kentucky Fried Chicken, Barbie dolls, etc. They rarely left their home.

Feeling sorry for them, my friend brought along two big boxes of KFC burgers and chicken wings for the family the following visit. The children were curious but nevertheless ate the unfamiliar food which tasted great. My friend felt happy to see the children enjoying the treat and thought to herself that seeing the smiles on their faces made whatever she had sacrificed to help others in need worthwhile.

The subsequent visit was a totally different situation altogether. The mother of the two young children was upset and when my friend asked her what she was troubled by, she replied that the two young daughters had been pestering her to buy them KFC for the past week. Never did my friend realise that her good deed of wanting to bring some enjoyment to the poor children had inadvertently turned into misfortune for the family. Without having even seen a KFC advertisement (the family did not have a television set at home), the children had not realised that they were missing what other children possessed. The introduction of this apparent luxury had unfortunately seeded the feelings of craving and desire in them.

Thus we have these questions:

Was what my friend did (bringing KFC to the children) right or wrong?

Did her actions generate more good than bad consequences?

Is the merit of an action solely dependant on the intentions?

Can a good intention have a bad outcome, and vice versa?

Ironies and Paradoxes

Connotations and associations, derivations and explanations.

The harder you try to explain life, the more complex it becomes. In trying to describe something which is beyond words, words, both written and spoken, will fail you.

An illusion, yet it is not.

Colors, smells, sights and sounds. Our senses, that with which we perceive the world, are at once both all-encompassing and terribly limited. Happiness and grief are but a hair-breadth apart.

Extreme happiness turns into sorrow and extreme sadness yields the start of new happiness.

For everything is connected in an inexplicable cycle, one leading to another, in an intricate fashion. The patterns we sometimes glimpse and think we can grasp; quickly though, they slip through our fingers as fast as they come.

True wealth comes not from material richness but from the heart - contentment and satisfaction with one's lot. The harder one yearns for happiness, the further it moves out of one's reach. Life is an oxymoron, a paradox. To understand it, you must totally forget its intended meaning.

Similarities rather than Differences

Our in-born focus on differences, on how the person next to us is different than us, gives rise to strife and unhappiness. It is the basis of discrimination. You will observe this in nature. Individual creatures with similar characteristics and profiles group together while they shun those with differing traits. We are born with this tendency as well; we criticise those who are different than us in their beliefs, we fear those whose practices vary from the orthodox, we distrust those whose looks and behaviour differ from the norm.

What we fail to realise is that all arises from a singularity, a single point. That which we know, that which we see, feel, hear, touch, taste and perceive in other ways, they are all different representations of the same thing. Our knowledge - mathematics, science, the literary arts - they eventually will converge to the same point. Even sensitive aspects of our awareness - religion and race - are merely various forms of the same.

Religious knowledge will change over time - nothing is permanent, not even the concept of permanence itself. Yet, parallels can still continue to be drawn across religions given that most are born of the same essence and driven by the same fundamentals.

There is gospel truth in every religion just as there is falsehood. Our perceptions introduce elements that deviate from the original intentions. The individual who sits on the fundamentals will not be troubled by falsehood even as he seeks the truth. However, the enormity of truth means that one will not be able to fully understand until he is beyond the cycle and beyond the effects of the cycle. Only then can he grasp the significance of all there is and all there isn't.

How it started

It all started late one night in the year 1986. I was ten years old.

Sitting cross-legged on my bed as I contemplated the day’s happenings, I felt myself slipping into an altered state of mind. The events that transpired during the day faded in and out of my consciousness even as I tried to make sense of them. Like a haphazardly edited video recording, the arrangement was chaotic and choppy. Though the pandemonium was similar to the mad flashes of lights and angry bursts of noises that one would associate with urban city conditions during the evening, it surprisingly left me with a clearer mind than at the start of the episode.

The social and emotional frustrations that I had as a growing child lightened their tight grip on me at the end and I felt myself relax, both physically and mentally. I did not take note of the duration of the episode but I distinctively remembered laying back down after that to fall asleep almost immediately.

In the nights that followed, I did the same. Each night before I slept, I assumed the same cross-legged posture on my bed and closed my eyes. I did not specifically will myself to experience the same sensations though I did try to recreate the same train of thoughts that I had on the very first night. Occasionally, the sensations that I experienced were similar. Flashes of light and loud sounds.

On other nights, I had other experiences in which my mind’s eye saw the people I had met during the day. They would be walking past me most of the time; sometimes they walked right through me. What particularly struck me during such episodes was that I perceived certain feelings in varying degrees from each of them – anger, happiness, distrust, sadness among others. It was almost as if my mind was revisiting the things that had happened and analysing the people I had encountered during the day. Unknowingly, I had stumbled upon the power of the subconsciousness through a variant meditative state.

Incidentally, I had begun to feel strongly about the notion of good and evil just about the same time when I started having these nocturnal pseudo-hallucinatory episodes. I had also just received a gift that I valued tremendously as a child, a set of encyclopedia. As I was by nature a curious child, I sought answers to my many questions in the tomes.

My thirst for knowledge was so intense that I kept at least one volume with me whenever I could. Volume A would be with me as I ate my lunch and dinner. Volumes T and U were for my bed-time reading. The more questions I asked, the more my mind queried. It was as if my hunger was insatiable. There were many uncertainties that the books could not resolve. Issues such as good and evil, right and wrong. These were ideas for which examples existed in both non-fiction and fiction but were extremely difficult for a child to grasp directly from flat two-dimensional examples.

My parents were traditional in their thinking and strict in bringing up their children. They gave me guidance in the form of do’s and don’ts but offered little in explaining what the intricacies of life entailed. The combination of my experiences at that point in time was likely the primary reason for start of the nightly meditation sessions. By a twist of fate perhaps, an avenue was opened to me where I could obtain some form of closure for some of the numerous unknowns in my life at that juncture in life.

Double-Edged Swords

Much has been said about the fear of loss of privacy, the loss of freedom, the loss of civil rights in this context and in others as well. If such security-related technology and activities were to become de facto in future, would generations of the future lament the loss of privacy? Would they regret the loss of freedom? For them, having been born without experiencing such things, the concept of loss in these areas probably would not apply.

To cite an analogy (this is a true case): I have a friend who is a social worker. An extremely motivated lady who dedicated much of her life to help those in need, sacrificing her time and money just to lend cheer to those who were not as well off as her. On weekends she would visit old folks who stayed by themselves in the older housing estates (usually one-room flats) and bring them food and money. Though what she could do for each individual is limited by her finite resources, her spirit was indomitable in rendering her help.

One day, she visited a particular family for the first time. The nucleus was made up of the parents and two young daughters. She spent more than two hours talking to them and trying to understand their situation. Though she knew that happiness can exist even in an improverished state, she was still pleasantly surprised to find that the two young daughters were playing happily with what little they had. As she tried to get to know them better, she found that they had little realisation of what other children of their age knew - Kentucky Fried Chicken, Barbie dolls, etc. They rarely left their home.

Feeling sorry for them, my friend brought along two big boxes of KFC burgers and chicken wings for the family the following visit. The children were curious but nevertheless ate the unfamiliar food which tasted great. My friend felt happy to see the children enjoying the treat and thought to herself that seeing the smiles on their faces made whatever she had sacrificed to help others in need worthwhile.

The subsequent visit was a totally different situation altogether. The mother of the two young children was upset and when my friend asked her what she was troubled by, she replied that the two young daughters had been pestering her to buy them KFC for the past week. Never did my friend realise that her good deed of wanting to bring some enjoyment to the poor children had inadvertently turned into misfortune for the family. Without having even seen a KFC advertisement (the family did not have a television set at home), the children had not realised that they were missing what other children possessed. The introduction of this apparent luxury had unfortunately seeded the feelings of craving and desire in them.

We appreciate privacy, freedom and civil rights because we are aware that such things exist. If there were to come a time when the future generations do not even know of these fundamentals, they will likely not view the world in the same way we do right now.

What is right and what is wrong? There isn't a clear line to separate right and wrong for they differ from individual to individual, and even for a single individual, the definition varies from situation to situation and from time to time. Your definition of the "right balance of privacy and security" is possibly not the same as mine. We often have little option but to depend on those in the positions of power (political, scientific fields) to make decisions on our behalf such that the majority of the people agree with their selected definitions and can therefore (usually) benefit from these decisions.

Vurstha

Vurstha Reeka's weary hands ached as she pushed lightly on the thick oak door. A dozen pair of eyes locked onto her frail frame immediately as she shuffled across the room towards the tavern-keeper. "A glass of warm ale, my good man." Her voice, colder than the harsh winter air, cut through thick bubbly tavern laughter. The room fell silent and only the crackling of burning firewood in the fireplace served to counter the increasingly stifling hush. A burly mercenary nearest to Vurstha shifted uncomfortably in his seat and fiddled with the hilt of his broadsword.

"And what will you be paying with for that?" The tavern-keeper, a powerfully built dwarf, eyed Vurstha suspiciously. Strangers in Dharkha were a rare sight and were not treated amicably, much less strangers who wore tattered robes and walked unsteadily.

"This!" Vurstha hissed as she slammed a dented golden coin onto the keeper's counter.

The tavern-keeper hesitated for a moment before he picked up the coin and examined it closely. The flames in the fireplace cast strange twisted shadows that danced on the tavern walls. The coin, old and abused as it was, glittered unnaturally in the weak light and felt remarkably heavy. The dwarf bit hard on the bent metal. It was real gold. Satisfied, he poured a glass of frothy ale and put it in front of Vurstha. "Here's your ale."

Vurstha took the glass and tasted a little of the dark liquid that swirled within. She grimaced as the rancid Dharkish ale stung her tongue and mouth. Closing her eyes, she sipped from the glass and felt the liquid work its way down her throat, burning and healing at the same time. Dharkish ale, well-known for its rejuvenating properties, was a favorite with the rough and tough of Khanduras despite its sour tang.

The tavern slowly regained its life as the patrons resumed their banter. This stranger did not appear to be dangerous. Vurstha paid no attention to her surroundings, choosing instead to quickly finish her glass of ale. Outside, frost had begun to form on the windows and the first signs of winter were manifesting in the form of light snow-fall.

The flames in the fireplace wavered suddenly as though hit by a draft. Vurstha froze and swallowed hard. Her enemies were closing in on her. She had to leave, fast.

Summoning the last ounces of strength in her physically exhausted body, she pushed herself to her feet and headed for the door. As her withered hand closed on the knob, a blast of fire threw open the door and smashed her against the back of the tavern. Three dark figures stepped through the flames and into the tavern, apparently untouched by the fiery tongues that lapped at their feet.

As Vurstha lay groaning in pain, chaos erupted about her as the tavern patrons scrambled for cover. The tavern-keeper, anxious to protect his establishment, took his trusty war-hammer and charged at the dark figures. Before anyone could help him, the figure in the center grasped him by the neck and lifted him off the ground. The war-hammer dropped onto the floor, its hundred pound head breaking one of the floorboards as it landed.

The disarmed dwarf punched at the figure that his short arms could not reach. Gradually, his futile efforts dwindled and his legs stopped kicking in the air. It was as though the touch of the figure had sucked the life out of him. The figure cast the lifeless body of the tavern-keeper aside easily, like a child discarding a puppet he had gotten tired of playing with.

"Monsters!", Vurstha cursed as she picked herself up, scowling as her face contorted with pain.

She reached into her robes and drew forth a silver amulet. With her left hand, she traced a circular symbol in the air and hurled the amulet at the figures. Even as the amulet flew towards them, the white metal ignited and burned with a bluish flame.

"Ethra Domas Trivoli!" Her shrill voice deafened those who still possessed their hearing after the initial explosion that had blasted open the door and injured the sorceress. The flaming amulet flared and exploded into a thousand shards of light that pierced the three figures. Like darkness in the face of the rising sun, the three figures wilted and faded into nothingness.

With the catastrophe momentarily averted, Vurstha saw darkness envelope her vision as she collapsed into a heap onto the floor.

"So you awaken." A strong mellow voice washed over Vurstha.

Blinking as she recovered her vision, the sorceress saw a man bent over her, his wizened face breaking into a smile. "Wh-" she started, but the pain that ran through her body like lightning stopped her short.

"Hold your breath, child." The man stroked her hair. "I have negated the effects of the aging spell that was cast upon you. You will be young again in just a while."

Vurstha looked at her hands that were changing before her very eyes. The deep lines that stretched from the back of her hands to her elbow slowly became faint and eventually disappeared. The colour of youth returned to her skin and as she touched her face with her hands, she could feel tautness where loose folds of skin were just a day ago. Relief swept through her and she wiped away a tear that involuntarily ran down the side of her face.

"Thank you, whoever you are. How did you know that I was under an aging spell?" The sorceress smiled as she sat up on the make-shift bed of straw and wood.

"Easy, Thorada told me." The man replied.

Vurstha's smile vanished as quickly as it came. "Thorada? The frightful One?"

The man nodded gravely. "He was the One who brought you here. He ordered me to heal your wounds. It was He who told me your story."

The sorceress gasped. "Why...why should a God do that for me?" Instinctively, she reached within her robes for her amulet. Her fingers closed around a familiar star-shaped device.

"Do not worry. He has not taken away your amulet. He could not." The man uttered. "The magic in the amulet is too strong, even for a God."

Vurstha narrowed her eyes as she appraised the man standing before her. He was dressed in a simple white tunic, middle-aged, slightly rotund and a crown of hair framed a balding top. A thick gold chain hung around his neck and a large black opal sat in the center of the locket that dangled from it.

"He knows the secret of my amulet?" Vurstha asked.

"Of course, He is, afterall, one of the Gods." The man smiled contemptuously. "He saw what was going to happen to you and sent me there to help you."

The sorceress swallowed and fingered her amulet. The cold metal vibrated with power at her touch. "Who are you? And why is Thorada so interested in me?" Her eyes followed the man as he waltzed across the room to a chest sitting atop a vanity.

"I am Yipo, a priest of Thorada." The man pondered. "As to why He is interested in you..." He paused for a moment and opened the iron-wrought chest. From within, the priest took forth a glowing green gem and returned to Vurstha's side. "Look into this gem. It will tell you what He has planned for you."

There was darkness blacker than the soul of night. And a silence that smothered like thick dense smoke. She was in a space that was without walls, without floors and ceilings. Although it appeared that there was nothing that held her up, she was not falling. It was a place in which logic ceased to exist.

She was still but the place she was in moved. In the distance, she could see two shapes approaching her. As they neared, she could see that these were large misshapen blocks of blue gelatin-like substance that glowed with its own unnatural light. Within each of these blocks, a black form was trapped in suspended animation. She could not make out clearly the exact features of the dark forms.

Behind the two gelatin blocks, a shape gradually came into view. It was a large form, similar to the two trapped within the blocks, but much bigger. Like a gargoyle, it had wings, massive appendages that extended obscenely from its back. The back was facing her.

As the huge creature began turning towards her, she felt a sense of terror building within her, a sense of fear that threatened to overflow the banks of sanity. The creature was unknown yet familiar to her at the same time. The curves of the body were alien to her, yet she could recognise them. Her heart pounded so loudly in her own ears that she thought it would just rip itself from her body and float away in the darkness.

As the creature finally faced her directly, her entire body was quivering in horror. The creature was the embodiment of Terror, every single ugly bulge sending dread through her psyche. It moved closer to her, its unseeing eyes looking beyond her, into her. It raised its head, as though sniffing the air. It lowered its head and looked straight at her. Its mouth, a gaping orifice, curled in a grotesque smile. Then it opened and a ball of crimson fire came from within and enveloped her completely, burning her flesh and spirit, consuming her very essence.

Like the fires of hell, the crimson flames ate her flesh and tore her bones apart.

She screamed. Vurstha opened her eyes. Her entire body was drenched in cold sweat.

"You are back. Thorada was right. You are indeed special. No mortal has ever returned from a visit to Diablo and his brethen." Yipo muttered.

"Diablo?" The sorceress shuddered. "Is that..."

Yipo nodded. "That winged creature you saw in the sightless crystal was Diablo. The two blocks are the prisons that entrap his brothers Mephisto and Baal. They are the Prime Evils of the realms. Powerful demons that even the Gods fear."

"Demons." Vurstha grabbed her amulet. The cold metal burned her palm. "Is Thorada afraid of them?"

The priest looked away. "He has his concerns. Diablo is trying to free Mephisto and Baal from their eternal incarceration. Alone, Diablo is nothing to the Gods, but Mephisto and Baal are ancient demons whose powers are unfathomable. Together they have the power to eradicate the Gods and rule Khanduras."

Vurstha shuddered once more. "Demons that can overthrow the Gods?" She let go of the breath that she had been unconsciously holding.

Yipo nodded once more. "These are powerful creatures whose existence threaten the sanctity of the realms. The Gods have tried destroying them, to no avail. No magic that they possess is capable of destroying their essence."

The sorceress touched her amulet. It was humming, vibrating with an intense energy. It was as if it were singing out to her. "So they turn to me? Why me?"

"Not you." The priest pointed at her amulet. "Your amulet. The Starfire amulet." He paused. "It is the only magic in the realms that can even come close to destroying those demons."

"And I am the only one who can harness that energy."

"Yes, because the energy is tied to your soul, as it was tied to your mother's. The energy in your amulet is potent but virtually untapped as of now. What you have used to quell those shades back in the tavern is but just a tiny fraction of what it is capable of." Yipo shook his head. "Once you master the use of your amulet, you will the power to destroy even the..." He stopped suddenly.

"Gods?" Vurstha smirked.

"Blasphemy." Yipo scolded. "Don't even think of doing that. You will need all the help they can give you to learn the use of your amulet."

The sorceress smiled. "And so I will. How shall I find the demons once I have mastered that art?"

Yipo pointed towards the eastern horizon where the sun had begun to rise. "To the East. You will need to head towards the Eastern Realms."

Vurstha looked in the direction that he was pointing and saw that the morning sun had begun casting its brilliance upon the realms in all directions. Deep within her, she knew that it would be up to her and her journey to the East to ensure that it would do so for many more centuries to come.

The Fallacious Paradigm of Security

Most people are probably uncomfortable with the fact that their every activity can be monitored and logged with unerring precision. I'm no exception. However, I feel that the issue of privacy being compromised at the expense of security has been somewhat overhyped by detractors. If my vote were to count, I would choose security over privacy. A world that utilises pervasive technology to combat terrorism and other malicious activities which take away lives and cause hurt indiscriminately is, in my opinion, a more livable place than one in which we have maximum privacy and anonymity but live in constant fear of being blown to bits by fanatics.

Technology that allows seeing through walls serves two primary purposes when it comes to increasing overall security in daily life. Firstly, the deterrence factor cannot be overstated. Knowing that a high percentage of their unethical activities can be easily witnessed by other people would likely reduce the speed of reprobates carrying out such plans. With sufficient ubiquity, this technology can cut down the situational advantage that such people currently possess.

The second purpose pertains to actual security enforcement. This technology would allow enforcement agents to better conduct counter-terrorist and related activities. For example, based on intelligence reports, they would be able to quietly perform scans of areas that that have been marked as high-risk zones. Results from these scans can then be processed visually or electronically to quickly support crack-down operations.

Having said all these though, it is perhaps inevitable in time to come that the advent of this technology results in the progression of peer technology such as scan-blocking and scan-muddling. It is thus likely that this will result in a low-privacy and low-security world subsequently in which common folk are subject to pervasive and intrusive identity scans while bad-hats employ counter-technology to slip through such scans.

The bottomline is that the extent of technology does not matter more than how it is applied. The latter in turn depends on the degree of progression of human ethics and actualisation of the human spirit. A world in which technology and human ethics progress at disproportionate rates teeters on the edge of destruction.

The Color of Money

There are three tones to the color of money. The first is the tint that most people in the civilised world are aware of. It is the accumulation of material hardware and symbolic items such as properties and money. Those who are familiar only with the first tone will look at wealth in a single-dimensional manner - it can be (and, for many, will be) grown through vehicles such as investment, savings, business.

The second tone is the subtler and often unnoticed aspect of wealth - that it is like a stream that courses through the land, bringing life to flora, feeding animals and other creatures along the food chain. Wealth creates the opportunity for life, specifically growth in other areas of life such as health, happiness and contentment.

The third and final tone of wealth is almost invisible like the sheen that dew produces on the blades of grass in the early hours of dawn. It pervades the air and coats all blades alike without discrimination, and in so doing distributes the enrichment that the stream brings to the land.

There are plenty of wealthy individuals such as Warren Buffett and Lee Kong Chian who have spent their entire lives accumulating wealth in the worldly sense only to then dedicate and relinquish the mass of their fortunes to philantrophy purposes. They have experienced the first two tones of the color of wealth in their accumulation and the benefits of their material possessions. Through the final relinquishing of their fortunes, they see the third tone of the color of wealth.

The true power of wealth lies in the third tone - the distribution of material wealth. Human nature however leads one directly to first tone and parks him there. Often, only those who have accumulated excess material wealth start to contemplate the second tone. And upon realisation of the true nature of wealth, they begin to see the almost invisible third tone of the color.

What is the main purpose of this post? The idea is that in order to maximise your wealth creation capabilities, you need to understand the role of wealth and the three tones of the color of wealth. When the right understanding sets in, you will work on creating wealth with the right motivation and right intentions.

This allows you to tap into the right places in the virtuous and vicious cycles of the world that we are all trapped in, for the benefit of not just yourself but others as well. In this way, you optimise globally instead of locally where your efforts are injected and you and everyone else can reap the returns in both the short-term and long-term.

Paradox of Life

Connotations and associations, derivations and explanations. The harder you try to explain life, the more complex it becomes. In trying to describe something which is beyond words, words, both written and spoken, will fail you. An illusion, yet it is not. Colors, smells, sights and sounds. Our senses, that with which we perceive the world, are at once both all-encompassing and terribly limited.

Happiness and grief are but a hair-breadth apart. Extreme happiness turns into sorrow and extreme sadness yields the start of new happiness. For everything is connected in an inexplicable cycle, one leading to another, in an intricate fashion. The patterns we sometimes glimpse and think we can grasp; quickly though, they slip through our fingers as fast as they come.

True wealth comes not from material richness but from the heart - contentment and satisfaction with one's lot. The harder one yearns for happiness, the further it moves out of one's reach. Life is an oxymoron, a paradox. To understand it, you must totally forget its intended meaning.

[ ]

Emptiness.

A feeling. A sensation. A thought. An opinion.

Cycle of Life and Death

We received news of a death today. It was an elderly relative who had been struggling with a long-term illness. His passing was quiet, he did not wake up from the semi-conscious state that he was in for the last few months. The silence with which he departed from this world was a stark contrast to the immense amount of anguish and grief that all who were dear to him had been experiencing. His wife, in particular, was sapped of energy. The constant vigil that she kept at his side in the hospital was physically, emotionally and spiritually draining.

A Buddhist master once remarked:

"Is it not strange that we celebrate the birth of a baby and mourn the death of an old man when the former has just stepped into suffering in this world and the latter out of it?"

Indeed, death and life seem to be intricately and inexorably linked in a perpetual dance. Life starts a new journey of exploration, growth and aging, culminating in sickness and eventually death. The dead return to the soil, nourishing the expanse of flowers and grass, and, through them, every single living thing. The endless cycle of death and life is a phenomenon that we powerlessly accept. The greatest kings, the strongest warriors, the hardiest labourers, they all cannot escape the beckoning of death. It is inevitable, unavoidable.

If ever there was a yardstick or a measure that is truly fair, death has got to be it. The lady of Justice may be blindfolded but Death is a step ahead. He does not even have eyes, ears or senses which can corrupt or bias his judgement. Big, small, strong, weak, fat, thin, young, old, male, female, white, black, He takes them all. Sadly, it is only in the presence of Death that all equality in humanity is restored.

It is perfectly natural for us, as human beings, to feel grief and sadness when our loved ones pass away. We have affection for the departed, a strong attachment of the heart and mind. The pain that arises when this attachment is forcibly torn from our hearts and minds strikes us hard and even renders us immobile. The pain invites confusion and stirs up many forms of negative feelings in us. Guilt, especially, is something that inflicts the greatest amount of suffering and anguish in all of us.

"I should have treated him better."

"If only I had been there more often for her when she was still well."

"He was a good man and deserved more than what we gave him."

Time heals the open wounds that guilt and the pain of loss inflict on mortal men like us. In time, the pain diminishes and for the fortunate, it even vanishes. For others, the pain fades but lingers as a soreness in one's heart and mind, refusing to go away.

However, just as Life gives way to Death, so too must Death relent when the time is right. And the cherubic angel of Life surely takes her turn on the stage as Death exits the spotlight.

It is crucial that we seek to understand the relationship between death and life, as well as the roles that they have in our lives and the Universe. For death and life are two forces that have, perhaps, the greatest impact on us mortals and can therefore lead us to reflect further on everything else that we can possibly fathom in our journey here in this world.

Ho Chi Minh City Day 2

Day 2 started with a breakfast from one of the roadside stalls. We saw many locals having Banh mi for breakfast so we decided to try it. Banh mi is basically french baguette with meat/egg and coriander, with mayonnaise and fish sauce. 

Banh mi stall near The Sinh Tourist

YY enjoying his Banh mi

Iced coffee for me and milk coffee for YY, which is be a must-have for me everyday in Vietnam. And I do not usually drink coffee in Singapore!

We walked to The Sinh Tourist office which was a few metres away from our hotel and waited to board our bus which brings us to Cuchi tunnel.

Booked a Cu chi tunnel tour online with The Sinh Tourist which is popular with many backpackers

Start of our Cu chi tunnel tour

 This is one of the places every tourist will have to go if they were to visit HCMC. The tunnels of Cu chi were where the Vietnamese guerillas hid during the Vietnam War and it was quite interesting to learn the various tactics they fought back the American troops.

Demonstration of how the Viet Cong hide underground

Booby trap

Bamboo spikes inside!

I always find it funny when I see YY posing with army tanks as he deals with them during NS

Rifles used during the Vietnam war

While waiting for the ang mohs to be done with their shooting session, we went to buy a corn lol

 We went down into the tunnels to have a feel of what the Viet Cong experienced while inside the tunnel and it was really cramped and stuffy and dark. I had to crawl/ duck walk all the way inside and I felt like dying as my legs and back were aching. Really amazing how they managed to survive inside.

Queuing to go down to the tunnel

Only picture I too inside the tunnel. It was total darkness inside and really cramped.

Shagged faces

Tapioca with peanut as a reward from the tunnel crawls!

Came back to The Sinh Tourist around 1pm and we only had 30min to settle lunch before our City tour commences. We bought from food from the roadside stalls again. 

Kebab from Doner Kebab from Bui Vien. It's featured on Wikitravel and it tastes not bad and looks hygienic

Decided to try the non-fried version of spring roll and we think we still prefer the fried ones

First stop - Reunification Palace