lifesong
Everyone needs compassion
And love that never fails
Let mercy fall on me
When everyone needs forgiveness
Kindness of the Saviour
The Hope of the nation
Saviour, He can move the mountains
My God is mighty to save
He is mighty to save
Forever author of salvation
He rose and conquered the grave
Jesus conquered the grave
So take me as you find me
All my fears and failures
Fill my life again
I give my life to follow
Everything that i believe in
Now i surrender
Shine a light in and
let the whole world see
Singing, for the glory of the risen king
Jesus, Shine a light and
let the whole world see
Singing for the glory of the risen king
Tuesday, February 17
-11:38 pm
I have quite a number of enlightening thoughts today. So I'm trying to list them out one by one.
So firstly. It just amazes me how culture, language and behaviour interact with each other to give the product of
us.We are shaped by these factors so unconsciously that we would really have to take a step back and think about it.
Take for the example of "fat". For the Japanese, it's ふとります (hutori masu). My teacher said that it's a verb, rather than an adjective. Basically it meant "I'm fat" （but it's an ongoing process). So it's more polite this way 'cause you aren't saying directly that a person is fat. it's the same thing for being thin/skinny - it's an ongoing process.
It is such a polite culture that speaking up their mind, telling the world what they want, trying to break free of the chains latched by society are pretty frowned upon. Individualistic traits are not culturally unique; everyone has their private/independent self. It's just a matter of whether they are given the opportunity, environment and context to be expressed. So it's possible that independent selves of Japanese are being suppressed. Manga (Yazawa Ai's works seem to have that underlying theme of breaking free from the usual mold in most of her recent works) and subcultures - cosplay, hentai-ness etc could be a manifestation of theirsuppressed state of mind. Of course all these assumptions are not supported by researches. But wouldn't that be an interesting issue to investigate?
Back to the topic, in English, it's very direct - fat means fat. As for mandarin, although there are two words for "fat" but we use 胖 to describe people but 肥 to use for animals or meat. It's not accurate to use both words interchangebly.
2) I wonder why the warm season attracts the so many mosquitoes and bugs into my room. I HATE THEM because I'm getting bites all over. It's itchy and irritating. RARH.
3) It only takes one action to be interpreted wrongly and result in many years of regrets but it take years to establish trust and rapport. People can be and are so sensitive to every action, word or feelings that sometimes you don't know what you should do to actually make them not to be sensitive about it. Sometimes the relationships are so enmeshed it's hard for us to know when we should be doing anything or not doing anything at all. Because by doing or not doing anything, we can cause irreparable damage to someone. There's no culture of truth.
So trite and unhealthy.
*credit to setsuko2412 on deviantart for Yasu's picture. loves Yasu because he cares for everyone. felt so sad for him when he had to break ren's death to nana, he cried. the poor soul. :[ but he is also so detached sometimes that it's scary. he cares because it's necessary to be so. that's in his "words".
Sunday, February 15
-9:54 pm
Childish.
Childish.
Childish.
You and me both.
I'm willing to make changes. But you are just adamant about maintaining status quo.
Who's the childish one now.
Fuck it.
Monday, February 9
-12:41 am
Shut the Fuck up and leave me alone.
It seem like I can never have a day for myself now. AT ALL.
Makes me detest technology IMMENSELY now.
Monday, February 2
-11:01 pm
I'm doing 3 projects with a Ong Sinyi, from someone whom I was acquainted with in secondary school to someone whom I have shared several lunches together as a coursemate. HAHA. Among that 3, 2 are with a Janice Lau whose brother is also "Benjamin".
The world is freaking small and too smiliar.
And I have found out the addiction to facebook applications. No wonder people can spend so much time on it. It's really the games I tell you. You just want to keep breaking the record so that you can be higher in position than that certain person you detest.
Cultural Psychology under Catherine wasn't so bad, at least at that point of time where what she said seems to make sense. All the etic and emic stuff. But under Wei Ning, the topic has become confusing. Everything has become "depends on". In the end, everything is relative. I may subscribe to that school of thinking, but it's hard to subscribe it as part of my school work. Anything goes now.
I was reading posts in a atheist facebook group and some of their arguments just don't make sense to me.
Eg: "Morality is instilled in us." - Morality, I feel, is never a product of evolution. What survival value does it hold if the creature has morality in it? It fundamentally goes against the thought of "survival of the fittest". Morality talks about standards, a certain
absolute standards. How can it be instilled in us if it's a standard? Who is the first man to set this standards? Subsequently, who is to say that this certain man's standard is the same for everyone? Cultural studies now say that everything is relative. A certain concept can be etic to several cultures, but the manifestation becomes emic depending on the group that we are targetting at. Anyway, absolute standards can only come by with authority. Clearly it has to come from some divine, absolute being rather than man since man is prone to error and so easily swayed by others. How does evolution creates the need to have this morality if it's merely about surviving till the next moment and ensuring that you actually have offsprings? Why don't we see animals have morality since everything evolved from the same single cell being anyway?
"Animals are intelligent beings too" or something about us being the same as animals. Why are humans compared to animals? They don't care about anything but survival. Do they built civilisations? Do they create things that are truly functional? Yes they create things and do improve on it, but in the end, do they actually try to make more and market to other fellow creatures? No. Do they communicate their feelings and thoughts? Possible. Yes they are intelligent and capable of feelings but they are also only a selected few. Dogs, dolphins, chimpanzees. There are so many animals in the world, why is it that only human beings are the one who are capable of creating and managing the world? Why are we the only species that are capable of bringing more and more improvements and then evolving into what we are today? If these equally intelligent species are capable of so many things, why aren't they at the pinnacle of evolution too?
Maybe religion is really about us being "needy", about us being "brainwashed", about us being "insecure"; but at the end of it, when there's truly a judgement day, we have somewhere to go. If there is none, then to us, at least we have spent our lives meaningful, not in vain and not full of possible negatives feelings about the world. We all will go to the same place then, if there's one to go to. To us, there is meaning and purpose in life at the very least. If it's all about evolution, then what are we here for? We only need to care about surviving. There's no need for the emotions, thoughts, or morality to be instilled in us. Why should we care about that anyway? Murderers should survive, because they are able to kill off "weaklings". Hitler should have won, because he was just trying to create a superior race, better than everyone else. It's evolution in every sense.
And the belief about Earth and all it's living things are created by chance. The chance of me winning One Million SGD is so much higher than that. Chance - why is it that the creation of life can be subjected to chance but not events in our life? That we must fight tooth and nail to get what we want, thought we are entitled to? Chance is so undefinitive yet it can be used as an explanation for creation of life but not life itself.
I can't see how their views make sense, then again, I doubt that they can see how
our views make sense. A man can only believe what he wants to believe.
And now, I've to start thinking about FYP. It is such a chore.
