BLOGGER



Youngest kid of six with an inferiority and black sheep complex, but determined that God saves not just his soul to heaven but the remainder of his manic-depressive life, so others won't say he became a Christian and remained a jerk.


MAIN THEMES

On identity
i won't be transparent before i'm opaque. and you'll get to know me starting from the small things: who my favourite bands are. what kind of movies i like. who are my heroes.

On Christianity
I’m convinced that when confronted with sincere, real love, the Jesus factor will become obvious. But let’s not plant the cross before we carry it. I’m not trying to con you.

On dreams
Some dreams are meant to be achieved. I know that. But maybe other dreams are meant to drive us, privately. Never known to anyone but ourselves.


OTHER THEMES

On melancholy
It is a sadness that, when choosing between crying and sighing, will choose sighing. I'd almost say that melancholy is being sad about sadness itself.

On memory and nostalgia
It saddens me when life moves forward and people decide that certain things are worth forgetting.

On language
I've learnt that the word irregardless is filed as a non-standard word in the English language. That's a lexicographer's way of saying it's not a real word.

On politics
Crowds are fickle things. So when we stand in the thousands and cry against the present government, do we know who we're actually crying for?

On society
People always want the best for themselves. But I want to sometimes take second or third or fourth best, just so that the loser down the road doesn't always have to come in last. It must feel like shit to always come in last.

On growing old
Leasehold property make me feel sad. It doesn't matter how old the family photos are that you put on your wall. It's your family but it's not really your wall.

On philosophy
I ask you, if God loves everyone, and if God is also incapable of loving evil, how can there be such a thing as an evil man?

On a daily basis
One line quips, like this.


CHAT





Friday, February 29, 2008
ON CHINESE FAITH AND THE ELECTION

There's a blogger called "The Malaysian" who recently said this regarding malaysian chinese voters:

"The older among the Chinese electorate may not wish to rock the boat and may be willing to accept ruling party assurances that things will be better next time around. Feeling resentment, anger, disappointment and bitterness is not enough. Translating those emotions into a 'loyalty shift' is the tricky part. And are the Chinese really up to it? Or will they as usual chicken out at the last minute, preferring to keep what little they have rather than 'gamble' on the future?"

when athalia sent me that, i told her it's because of the religion.

chinese traditions and folk religions foster a very one-sided hierarchical relationship between man and deity. the chinese psyche is governed largely by compliance and fear. don't believe me, look at the number of superstitions surrounding events like weddings or chinese new year. you have to do a, b and c, or else, x, y and z.

the end result is an entire community that seems to me to be perpetually paralysed towards change. maybe they afraid of the quasi-spiritual, quasi-confucian authority, and the retribution that either it, or natural order, brings, especially if the change that is called for necessitates that spiritual or confucian authority's demise.

people say that when you talk about preaching the gospel to the chinese, there is a lot of unshackling to do. maybe it's because preaching jesus is preaching a revolution of change. likewise, galvanising chinese towards political reform suffers from the same difficulty - choose the untested opposition and x, y, z. while this in no way links the present opposition to any kind of christianity, it nevertheless highlights the chinese psyche's resistance towards rocking any of its worldview boats.

i think that as long as nobody is patient with this unshackling process, the end result will always be that the chinese mind crawls back into familiar ground and reject change. ironic then, that it is the buddha to whom it is often attributed the saying "everything changes, nothing remains without change".

and so i wonder. what's the point of the chinese living in a democracy if they are fundamentally so afraid of a change in government?

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Genusfrog [ 6:13 pm ]

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