XLVIII - at last

I am the grandson of Ho Thiam Hock, and of my ah ma, who once held me.

And this is what I do: I fix broken people.

XLVII - i just need some time to simmer, to mellow, and to remember

song of the week: king crimson, epitath
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KogHYeA0ns
there is something magical about this song. it's in the keyboards and the drumming and the bass notes and then the guitar. it's all so... wonderfully mystical. and it is perfectly sung.

poems of the week:
aaron fogel, the printer's error
http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/036.html
(abit long winded but quite an interesting idea.)
alvin yap, 撑伞
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=443796211320

socialising has a marginal utility.
i was thinking about why i find casual conversation quite fun at first, and then about an hour or two after, i find it quite tiresome. and i didn't want to think that people were stupid and mindless most of the time, and because i was being too critical (gosh it keeps coming up), so i told myself to be more accepting and not pay so much attention. which is counter-intuitive because i don't like to be half-hearted, i.e. just nod and stuff, but nevermind that, just try and be nicer to what people say. then i was trying to think of why i found people annoying after awhile besides concluding that it was simply my fault (well, i've already come to acknowledge that), and i realised that the answer could be explained by economics.

and then it made sense to me. the sims is a lie - it's not that your social bar fills up to a maximum after a certain amount of socialising, it's that it becomes harder and harder to fill up. add marginal utility - more is not more. socialising that has a certain value becomes less valuable as an individual has more of it; thus the individual either becomes disinterested in that grade of socialising, or seeks a higher grade.

the usual assumptions apply as they normally would in economic analysis, i.e. limited size of the pie, self interest, rationality, value, perfect competition maybe? and i suppose a few more, which i doubt i'm capable of adequately enumerating. perhaps: that people have a 'social' bar that falls over time; that people realise that there are different values of socialising; that marginal utility applies to socialising, i.e. maybe more does = more; that people properly measure the value of socialising; and that they actually intentionally compare the value of socialising, either with more valuable socialising or with something else they'd rather be doing, or even with somebody else. but all these assumptions don't seem that far-fetched to me.

i don't think people actually do compare this. but i do believe that this is a powerful, if subconscious, factor in how individuals interact. i mean, often i realise i'm quite tired of being in someone's company, and well, guess how i got there.

an interesting extension is that the marginal utility of the society of each specific individual may also fall. therefore the more you listen to one person, the it seems like, yeah i already know what he's going to say, man, when is he ever going to get past this phase/ grow up/ stop talking already, etc. an alternative analysis could be that characterising people according to their tendencies when they socialise (aided in part by properly valuing their society) tends to cast them in a less forgiving light. but hey, tell me this isn't a (subconscious) factor to you.

this might be an explanation why, as the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt. or more generally, why couples do get enough of each other, why there is a short honeymoon phase, why people overseas want to stay in touch with people back home (because they're lonely, duh), why (personally) i generally like to speak with interesting people. it might explain many other things besides.

therefore, don't blame yourself when you find that people get annoying, blame econonomics. hell, blame the physical world we live in (it's how economics operates). ultimately, then, you can blame life.

understatement.
(i realise that this word is ironic underlined)
there is something hilarious about understatement. british people are a fabulous example. here's one - paul mccartney, sir paul: "When they started out, Oasis boasted that they were going to be bigger than The Beatles. And I felt sorry for them. It's a prediction that just doesn't come true. It's a fatal prediction. I sort of sit back and go, 'Good luck, son. Go right on by.'"

but the magic of understatement is in having a sort of self-effacing attitude. the true magic then is in someone who appreciates the understatement and finds it hilarious. most understatements go unnoticed, but i submit that an intentionally made understatement is always funny.

heifetz.
there is something awesome about jascha heifetz. his attack and his clarity and his speed and his tone. but you hear it, and decide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jascha_Heifetz#Technique_and_timbre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFaq9kTlcaY

achewood.
guys, there is simply no better webcomic out there than achewood.

the magic is in the comments. the early comments really appreciate the little things in the strip. regrettably, the more recent commentators are the more show-off kind, pretentious, self-aggrandising, etc. aka, ugly nerdy.

anyway, when was the last time you actually, actually, got out of your chair and rofl-ed about something?
let me tell you: today.
http://m.assetbar.com/achewood/uua17ffXP

now i know it doesn't make sense at all by itself. but that's the magic. this webcomic lives and dies by the strength of its characters, and let me tell you, those are deep.

and i love cornelius bear. give that bear a pipe.
http://m.assetbar.com/achewood/uuaftZZMW
(read until 23rd June, 2006)

thanks for listening, folks.

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postscript: george carlin, people are fucking boring
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB8wWlPdYRs

XLVI - not a good time

song of the week: ray charles, you don't know me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-5LwRinkJ0

i think i'll never forget this song. it started with watching groundhog day. and then i listened to it ten times in a row (it's getting to about thirty), thinking about something that really troubled me. and it gave me the solace to think. this song and this grand old voice... set the mood for me to think and think and think.

i realised why i disliked my dad. i thought very carefully about the events of the past few days, and i realised that although i didn't like a lot of things he did and a lot of things he said, i didn't really blame him, partly because i knew he was like that, and partly because if i wasn't annoyed with him i wouldn't hold it against him anyway. and i was feeling guilty for avoiding my dad, who asked me if i needed a lift to school, and if i wanted to have breakfast. and as i thought more i realised he even did his own laundry, and i got annoyed when he asked me where the detergent was. this and other little things, i actually felt annoyed with. so weird.

anyway i acknowledged that i didn't really blame my dad for the things that annoyed me lately. i thought i disliked him and i just needed to have time away from him so i'd stop being annoyed. but that wasn't it either, because i wouldn't dislike him if i weren't annoyed with him.

i thought, he's such a show-off, and so selfish, and so insensitive... yada yada. but all these things i don't really blame him for, or hold against him. then what was troubling me?

and it took me an hour of sitting and thinking to get this. it was that i liked my dad, but i didn't like him when he acted differently around other people. i realised that it was these different characters about him that i really didn't like.

it was often necessary for him in different circumstances, i know. but it's the difference between the part of the person's character i like and the other parts i don't like. it's not so much that i dislike each of the different parts. it's that i don't like there being different parts, expressed in different circumstances. and the problem is that because every one of those different parts is also part of my dad's character, i don't like it.

i don't like liking a part of a person and not liking the rest of him as well. i wish he would act the way he was around me around everybody else.

i suspect all these things when people act differently in different circumstances:
that they're not secure with the way they are
that they manipulate people, or at least their relationships with people, by how they act
that when they're around me they conceal a lot about themselves that they don't want to show me
that if they truly acted the way they entirely are around me i would dislike them

and thus i find it very difficult and fucking annoying. partly because i do like my dad, when he's not full of shit. and thus when he says or does something that triggers me being annoyed, i'll probably attribute it to him acting in another character that i don't like, or showing a part of his character i don't like, it could be either. anyway it makes me annoyed that there is firstly something about that particular thing done that made me annoyed, something that i wouldn't like him to do around me, and secondly that there is something about my dad's character that i don't like.

and the thing is, that's people. everybody is like that. i may be too, although i really don't think so, as in i don't think i act differently around different people. but not everybody would agree with me that they could or should act as they would, as they are, and i can accept that of people. then what is it that annoys me so? i wondered if it was a trust issue, that i didn't really trust people who were like that, who acted differently around different people. and i think it's partly attributable.

and then take the textbook example of a guy who acts differently to a girl. conventionally acceptable, sure. but even that annoys me.

what's wrong with me?

i'm getting tired of people.
i thought i was, maybe a week ago.
and i thought, this is too early, too soon.
but now it seems,
i'm really tired of people

i'm too critical
this is a part of me that is
very difficult to live with

there's only two ways
one is to avoid people and stuff. i think i'm doing this more and more if i didn't change the way i thought of people.
the other is to accept.
just, to accept.

i thought i'd regret not letting my dad know that i didn't accept him. if tomorrow passed and i never got the chance. but my dad knows that i accept him. it's just that i get annoyed with him when i don't.

but i'll try. it's very hard, for some reason that is peculiar to me. to accept. what a laugh. but it is.

so i'll try.

is it hard to accept? how do other people do it? this is, both strange and difficult to me. it's got something to do with... taking things, people, life, seriously. but can't both be done? ah, enough.

-----

postcript:

paraphrasing as well as i can from memory, this story i remember from somewhere.

a man and a child were at a pool of water. the man asked the child if he could see his reflection in the water, and the child said yes. and then the man struck the pool of water, and asked the child again if he could recognise himself. and the child said, "no, that's my reflection, but it isn't". and then the man said, "if there's something you instinctively don't like about someone, it's because you see something of yourself in that person. always remember that."

XLV - ineffability is a laugh (but it's all we've got)

i wish that after people die, assuming they don't choose salvation beforehand, that they get another chance to decide to choose it.

after all, what would be so inequitable about that? what's unfair about someone being dead and looking behind the curtains and seeing the eternal reality and choosing salvation?

after all, life is full of information asymmetry and transaction costs. if these aren't a factor any more after death, why shouldn't a person's decision be recognised and given full effect?

i guess the question can be rephrased as, given that a person can make a fully informed choice after death... why not? the converse of this question is, can our decision before death truly be fully informed? why then should we be judged quite so harshly as when we decide not to choose salvation while we live?

why did God choose such an inefficient way to grant eternal life if he loves us? sure, because he wants freely given love. but how can love be given freely in life when we only can love by faith? and faith is such a terribly difficult thing to explain, to understand, to have. even the bible can only do as well as this: faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. but this is useless to a normal person.

and thus if people get a second chance, the only people who would enter hell are those that do not choose salvation a second time. but is that such a bad thing?

the converse of this proposition is that people sent to heaven cannot thereafter go to hell. but why? will we lose the power of choice after we die? i sure hope not, otherwise eternal life would be meaningless (or otherwise meaningful in a way that i as a human refuse to appreciate). and if we retain the power to choose, we retain the power to sin, which may seem to condemn us, but we know that Jesus' death saves us from even sins in the future. so what would happen if we sin in heaven? nothing, it seems. if angels can be cast out, it's because Jesus never died for them. but note that there can't be sin in heaven. does that mean we forever lose the power to make meaningful choice?

but going back to the question of whether we retain the power of choice after death (i hope we do) and whether this will save us if we are in hell (why not?).

another way of looking at this problem is, can a dead person's sins be transferred to Jesus? can Jesus make holy a dead person who has sin?

isaiah 38:18 - for the grave cannot praise you, death cannot sing your praise, those who go down to the pit, cannot hope for your faithfulness.

ecclesiastes 9:5 -  for the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing.

and the worst: john 3:18 - whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

sigh. religion is such a pain. too many difficult questions, contextual contradictions, vague references, theoretical untidiness, and terrific catch-alls.

here's a strange one: there are people yet to be born and yet to choose. but Jesus has already died for a fixed amount of sin.

is this incredible? is this wrong? i mean, what is this?

there have been very few times i've questioned my religion. this no second chance thing is right up there.

i suppose the simplistic way of looking at this is like this: God wants our faith and our love while we're alive, and when we're dead, we can hardly call our belief faith, given that we'll know what the afterlife entails. and though we may potentially love when we're dead, it isn't what God wants.

which begs the question, why does God want this kind of faith and love? but the answer to that is that nobody knows but God. and God simply isn't a weirdo to us, he just isn't.

(bloody hell).

XLIV - on the little things, and teamwork

i've come to realise something very simple and very powerful about sports
and i suppose it translates, like most things that sports teaches, directly, and well, to life

and it's this:
every player just needs something small to get them started
just a little small successful something
something tiny, something that makes him feel good
a rebound, a little lay-up, a zippy assist, a series of well placed screens, a good catch, a well aimed flick, a corner won, a good strong header, a good tackle, a clean burst, a ball well struck but pulled foul,
any of these little successes, that needn't translate into something on the scoreboard, but are nonetheless appreciated by a coach, by experienced team-mates, or by the more knowledgeable spectators amongst the crowd

it's like when kobe scored 81. he hit one or two layups to start, and poof! off he went. sure, he scored a lot, a lot of jumpers, those weren't gimmies. and he took some really forced shots too. but the dude is so confident, it's really not advisable to let him get started feeling good.

what i'm trying to say is that so much of sports is so difficult. making a jump shot can be so difficult. throwing out a person at three, so difficult. making a pass on the run in rugby. making a throw into space through defenders in frisbee. controlling the goddamn ball in soccer is hard enough, not to mention having to swing in a good hard cross. and come on, golf is really, really difficult.

but you just get started, you just get a little something that makes you feel, hmm, today may be a good day, today may be a good strong day, today may be my day. and your friends start passing to you more, looking more to you, playing complementary to you. and things just suddenly make sense. doing all these difficult things just... makes sense. the mind's eye sees the patterns emerging, sees the spaces form, the bodies running. the body forms up into good technique, working on muscle memory. the timing, the motions are clean, the movement is quick and consistent, the teamwork and understanding develops. suddenly the difficult things become routine. and things feel good, things feel confident. things don't speed up anymore, now you have time to size up the opponent, to sense when he's unbalanced, out of position, overplaying one side, and hesitant. then he makes the adjustments, not you. and win or lose, the game is played the right way, as good as you could have done.

so i guess the moral of the story is this
to play sports, a person needs to have good hard training
but assuming you've reached a certain proficiency and experience
start slow, and pride yourself on the little things that you do well
let the game come to you. but be aggressive when necessary.
never take for granted having to do the difficult things
after all, if it were easy, everyone would do it
but remember that little successes go a long way
remember too that encouraging team-mates goes a long, long way
(even though i find it terribly frustrating that most don't take criticism well)
and it's impossible to do many routine things when stressed out
so always think of ways to contribute to the game, by hustling, by playing smart
don't be afraid to feel the ball a few more times, if only to pass it to someone else
earn your team-mate's trust not by demanding the ball, but by doing the little things that make things easier for them

and how does this translate to life, you say
well, i'll only say this
there are some days you feel confident
some days you feel lucky
and maybe if you really thought about it, it's because of some little breaks here and there that went your way
even a little encouragement, or someone laughing at something funny you said

i don't mean for these words to be a cure-all, cos' what you need is what you provide for yourself
but maybe when you're at a loss
a little bit confused, a little bit bewildered
remember that the little things can get you back on track
rely on your team-mates, be assured by their trust
don't feel sorry for yourself, and don't stress yourself any more
just, do the little easy things, and do them well

and one day when you realise that you've done something awesome
you'll probably think, this is still kinda sinking in, but it felt like yeah, routine
but you won't forget that it all started from those... one or two little things
and you feel humble because it really was your team-mates that made it possible

that's what i think is the true beauty of sports
that once in a while
just maybe
these things i just mentioned
are more important than Ws and Ls

now here's my challenge to you
when you watch sports
can you tell who's going to have a good day?
hint: it's in the little things he or she does well
but here's the real kicker, the real kicker
when you watch people
can you tell who's doing the little things well?

XLIII - magic

song of the week: dream theater, through my words
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opq72hDWHt4

there is something magical about making daily choices
which makes a person question life
makes him remember what he stands for, on, and by
and learning not to worry about tomorrow - a difficult thing if there ever was one

just like there is something magical about freely given grace
grace, the only true thing
grace which is not more nor less than what we need

just like there is something magical about freely given love
why we love something we can only believe in
why it is more than all of human love

there is some pervasive magic that runs through this bible
magic not in the normal sense, but magic in the God this is cool sense
there is some magic in the way these words are shaped
something with how well He understands... the deepest human ideas
how we understand things at the most profound level

and how the best stories are the simplest
how the best wisdom is the most foolish
how only the littlest children are saved

but there is also something magical in this world
i admit to this freely
i love this world more than i can imagine
i love because i live as hard as i can

and therefore there is something magical about living here and up there at the same time
because we are called to simultaneously do both
therefore there is something deeply magical about life before death
there is much magic to learn and to understand and to remember and to be

i suspect this is one of the two things i must do in this life
the other, i haven't been told yet
in time

XLII - rick barry/ jerry west

i always say that mistakes should be cherished.

but lately i've been wondering why i regret getting angry, as in, getting angry during frisbee.

i know, i know. there are lots of reasons, and very good ones, why i shouldn't get angry, which is why i've always said i'd try my best not to get angry.

and i don't really know the answer. i just don't know why i get angry so much. but thinking about it, it stems a lot from having a godfather mentality, a coach mentality. a lot of my anger and irritation springs from not being, well, respected, obeyed, revered. with immediacy. or when things slip out of my grasp. i always think, no matter how angry i get, i can play angry. but i also know it's really hard on people.

sigh.

i think i need to change this mentality.

i think it's not too late.

the funny thing is i'm such a nice guy when i'm not being 'tough' during a game.
it's this being tough and all that's my excuse for having all that anger...
and people can't tell when i'm really angry and when i'm being tough
that's a real problem...

i'm going to try and... just. i dunno.
so much of sport that inspires me drives me to competitiveness, to toughness.

rick barry - http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1120767/index.htm

jerry west - http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1085774/1/index.htm

it's so hard to catch myself, to not let my tough instincts take over, because i rely so much on them.
but i'm going to try.

God, i need to know how.
Thank you.