How do we know what we know? In philosophy, it is in an area called epistemology. Well? Being a lover of philosophy, a seeker of questions, the answer is we don’t know. The words on this page, the ink resting to assure history is all that accuracy is concerned. For the record, subjectivity transforms into objectivity. At times, written pain feeds on itself like a never ending enchantment.

We never know history, only the various interpretations of it in relation to us. None of which we are sure to be true. Narratives exist only as far our construction. There is no such thing as focus or tension outside convention. “Believing makes it so.” - Hamlet. Trusting makes it real. Isn’t it ironic, something of convention is able to generate real consequences? Within time and space, one view nearly always conveniently dominants over the rest. We only see what we see, and no more beyond.

For every rising sun, for every shooting star, we’d love to think it is forever. Nevertheless, every once in a while gravity brings us back down to the Earth: the future is unknown. We must not have these expectations; it is too much of a risk. We must not hold on too tight to what is merely a belief. I’ve always learnt it like common sense, yet don't we all get carried away at times?

A beginning must have an end,

The time has come, the time is now,

Farewell.

 

Moved my room again, I don’t know why I voluntarily agreed. Sartre once said subjectivity is the starting point of all thoughts. And I’m positive someone somewhere once has said an altruistic decision doesn’t exist. I guess we all need to practice letting go, to de-attach ourselves from the environment that we consider as the comfort zone before we have hung on for too long.

 

Live life as if you are cruising through. Never too involved and always remember to take a step back to watch instead. What a way to live! Is it even possible? Simply watching the world revolving around itself – can we qualify that as living? To live like nothing means anything, as if no one truly exists or that everything is only in the mind for a short period of time. Is that a life we fear too much to pursue?

the changes we make, the changes we ought to make... takes us through, pushes us through.

even when it is not a choice of will, it is a currency of flow.

the points which we turn, strengthens our soul. the failures we meet, the predictions we make, we face the day.

Days has gone by, hours has passed. I have finally reached liberty after my thirteen years of education. Something tells me this is meant to be a significant moment in my life. Yet, I have not been more unmotivated since the beginning of the exams. There are things I want to do; there are things I want to have done; there are changes I want to make. But where do I start? How do I start? What is my start?

 

Sometimes it seems that this is all life is, nothing but a piece of land; nothing but opportunities that over-floods our choices. Restrictions and boundaries are illusions designed to help us to make choices. They are like the bones to our body; they construct the basic structure of a human being. They limit us, yet they urge us to move to the fullest of our ability. They show us what we are aiming for, they give us standards, and thus a meaning is born. They are the guidelines.

 

Living, floating like a cloud without any structure of any sort, I can be pulled into any shape. What used to seem like a drop of heaven, choice is now more like an awaiting abyss. The mystery of the unknown intimidates the will with uncertainty and loss of solid ground.

 

This is the end of a chapter, the beginning of a new page. The door is once again open to possibilities. What I can do, what I might do, blows me away a little. What I want to do, what I might do takes me to my blind spot. With each trip back, denial grows stronger. Eventually my capacity for denial shall explode, that is when the future turns into the present. When you suddenly find yourself carrying your weight, there is no turning back, the past is gone.

After all these years of living, striving or simply just flowing through life, I find myself searching – searching for an aim, searching for a purpose, searching a means. I used to think I was searching for joy, then I realised I was searching for perfection; searching for purity. Naïve, I was, thinking I would reach my asymptote… eventually. Like Plato said, the true Forms only exist in the transcended world.  

            So I question our freedom, what are we doing here? “To be, or not to be,” is there a difference between the two?  

            Still we cope with life by setting out miniature goals for ourselves. Some become dangerously sucked into human affairs. As George Orwell tells, the rulers of our society have been no help but only encouraged further side-tracks. Today (2007 A.D) these mental disruptions among the masses are: marriage, kids, drugs, scandals in the media, pornography, terrorism, career, financial security, people relationships… etc. On one hand they are purposes, on another don’t you want something more to life?  

            I thought to myself, I want to make life worth living, to capture the essence of life. In deed, we are talking about something superior, what chance does it stand to exist in this world (at this time of the history)?

It’s so easy to harm yourself; if you bend your thumb and keep bending eventually it shall break. A statement made: I dare; I dared, but such a cheap act. If you want to push the boundaries you can start looking at stabbing a knife into yourself. Now that’s another new level. Before you know it, you start to think about suicides. Suicide? Why not?

 

Oscar Wilde said, “Life is too important to take it seriously.” Why such a serious reaction? At times you want to end it all, the good times along with the bad. End every thought. Say goodbye to conscious. Leave the world to the wiser ones, and save some for the fools. You know you are ready when you stop thinking about others.

 

Let it go, let it flow. Allow water to flow at it’s own pace, flow into the streams.

 

So many ties, not so many bonds, try to break free, try to break apart. Breathe out the memories, un-attach yourself. Reverse the moment of birth. End it in a second. End it in a blink. 

 

 

Too late, over.

 

The moment is gone.

In love, in life, there are limits in everyone. The mother reaches her limit before she explodes and snaps at her child. There is a limit in you, that after someone lying to you enough times you stop trusting them. When you think about it, our world runs on limits. Water reaches a hundred degrees Celsius before it turns into steam; water reaches zero degrees Celsius before it turns to ice. When you drive your car on the road you face speed limits, that if you disobey you risk crushing into the many cars that do obey.

 

I have reached my limit. After all these years of going back and forth, we allowed our chances to slip away, our remaining chances are no more different from a dried out plant. It’s over. Our chances have expired on us, we have lost it now. Time goes forward, we can’t go back. Sometimes limits are created by the things you know. We have waited too long. We have seen too much. We have lived in our substitution for too long. Life must go on.

 

Sometimes I think I have liked him for too long. Like a foolish girl who's forever leaning over the fence to pick her neighbour’s flowers.  When will I realise part of the joy comes from leaning over that fence, part of the beauty is that the flowers are not her garden. Maybe I have wanted something I don’t have for too long. My boned are now shaped, it’s too late to change. What if I never wanted to have him, all I ever wanted was to simply watch him.

 

I love him… no longer.

 

You were young and naïve, one piece of fresh flesh stepping into the world for the first time. Finding your way through the haze, everything followed a system of ‘personal gain.’ The dark world was made up of greed, mistrust, moral sins. It was hard to hold on, impossible to believe the unbelievable.

 

Who would have thought there would be someone else, just as important as themselves? It still is hard to think there could be someone else. Coming to think of it, that someone was there all along, playing a lead in the story of your story your life. Capable of breaking you down in the most brutal way, this never was the way it was meant to be. You never know what you have until it is lost.

 

Waking from sub-reality, rising from deep water, realising it for the first time – you will learn to value someone else. You will cling onto them like a pair of goggles over your eyes. Without regret, you begin to save first place for someone else.

Validation; what is it? Is it when you validate your ticket before stepping on board a public transport? What does it mean to be validated? What does it mean when something is valid? Is a valid argument more superior to a non-valid argument? As pedestrians, commuters, employees, it is vital that we appeared valid for our own sacks. For obvious reasons, as anyone can understand that no use can be made out of an expired ticket just as a non-valid argument will not win you a case in court. How do we know that we are valid? Is validation what keeps us going at times? More importantly, how do we keep ourselves informed that we are valid?

 

Living in a time where food is no more of a problem than taking a photo with a digital camera, choice are boundless like the edge of sky. It is suddenly an issue; what should we do with our lives? The question lies undeniably in front of us as we all suffer from this existentialism crisis. Let us take a moment to stop and think, out of all the options yet we chose to pause at validation.

 

Some people aim at high goals, their validation exists as they achieve the impossible. That is succeeding the average standards, in order to believe they are beyond the bovine race which they belong to. Others would do anything to be noticed as if their souls are being ‘nutritionised’ by attention. In one way or another, human beings are like machines. Machines live on petrol or energy; surely we ought to live on something too. Can validation be the one thing that everyone seeks at?

 

People look for validation all the time, most of the time it’s to escape from an inner fear, the fear of being alone, the fear of being ignored, the fear of being left out. As a result, they change their ways of living to earn themselves the validation that they have been starving for. Thus, they find themselves in unwanted relationships, or better worse dull marriages, tedious conversations, pointless contracts. All, just so they can be acknowledged for something, hopefully be appreciated or valued. Do we own it to ourselves, or do we own ourselves to it?

see it first came to my attention when i heard that animals' skins would be lifted off just so scientists can watch with curiosity at their blood circulation. then i found out further more, that, each year million of animals would be paralyzed, blinded, burnt, eletrocuted, given cancer, brain-damaged, and then finally die in slow painful death.

 

cruel? maybe

 

what did hit me was that it started because animals (excluding human) were considered to be less intelligent, for this lack of rationality they were treated this way. i'm not saying this is wrong, if it's a rule it's the rule, if it's set it's set. though, i do have a problem with double-standards. some humans with mental problems or infants have less reasoning than some animals. does it not make sense to use them as part of scientific experients as well? would that be wrong? inhumane?

 

we can do it to rest of the animals, why not humans? if we can't do it to humans why is it that we do it to rest of the animals?

 

i didn't really mean to name this 'animal rights' cos humans usually talk of rights when they can't defend themselves with anything else. animals they are not weak next to human beings, because humans are too weak in their own ways.

 

anyway, what i really want to say here is: where do u value humans on a scale along with all the other animals? do u find yourself superior along them? are you proud with your choice, or are you disguisted? do u think about how you treat others? and you think about how other are affected by you? do you find yourself to be that much superior than rest of the animals?

So I haven’t been the best person in the world. I’ve committed back-stabbings, unpleasant wishes upon others, lies, shop-lifting, illegal downloading, cheating on exams… and ten million other things I can’t even think of right now. No, I probably am not the worst person in the world; you can trust me on this one. Should I be punished? Do I need to be punished? Do I deserve to be punished? Does karma exist? Does karma balance out the society for good? I am going to look into these questions and since I don’t believe in karma, I will suggest to you why karma does not exist and why such myth was told. I shall discuss whether or not karma is worth believing as a society.

 

First, I shall run through my reasons for not believing in Karma.

To believe in karma is to believe in the existence of good and bad. And to make sure karma is being fair to everyone, there must be a universal good and a universal bad. So is there? We see the same news change depending on the country it’s printed in. Even history alters its way to please its audience. How can we be sure that what is good is good? For instance, soldiers fighting in a war, are they committing sin or are they fighting for their country? When the legend Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to poor, should he be praised or served with no double-standard? At the end of the movie, when the good shots the bad, does that make both sides bad as it is only a matter of who used the gun first?

As we can see, it is reasonable to say that karma requires a supernatural figure to watch and judge. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all? Who can judge without personal favouring, and who can discipline righteously to the exact amount? This supernatural being ought to be ‘God’, which raises the question does He exist.

Honestly, I’d hate to diss your safe and secure thoughts on God. In no disrespect, I doubt His abilities:

i)                    How does He manage to watch over all of us?

ii)                   Why would he dedicate all His time to us?

I doubt His existence:

i)                    The bible offers no proof of His existence after His death, but simply states.

ii)                   The most recent evidence we have today of God, are stories of miracles told by His followers/ believers. Very possibly the miracles have no connections to God, but just happened to be.

iii)                 How come He has never showed Himself publicly to assure his people of his existence?

iv)                 How do we reply to the Holocaust and the victims of wars, in acknowledgment of God? Was it karma? Did He set them up?

Clearly, karma and God do not go together. No wonder the Christians excluded karma from their doctrine.

 

Now, let’s assume karma does exist. And let me ask, what goods will it do in a realistic world? Is it still important for the society the have karma at the back of their minds?

In spite of all the fundamental problems with karma, if Mike was hit with bad karma, what good does it bring the community apart from satisfying their bitter mental state? Perhaps, karma acts as a threat in people mind when considering unpleasant acts.

Criminals knew the consequences of their actions almost every time, yet we still have criminals filling up the prison cells. Someone once said that laws are designed to keep fools in line, for someone who is scared by the thought of disciplines. While a true cold-hearted blood-thirsty murder or whatsoever will not be stopped by their consequences.

One might say stopping fools better than not stopping anyone at all? Yes, but by making something illegal also encourages another group of people perform these acts.  

 

to support the site, please state whether or not you believe in karma in the comments box. if so, why? if not, would promot other people to believe in karma? and why?

We all know the game of ‘knock knock. Who’s there?’ So what if the person outside does not know? What I mean is the person outside does not know what reply, as in they don’t know themselves well enough to answer. ‘Who’s there?’ does not necessary ask for a name though people do tend give their names as an ID to identify who they are. Honestly, it’s a pretty vague way of describing oneself. Now, how would you reply to who you are? One of the most needed-to-answer questions of all time to each individual, yet it is ignored a side. Some have chosen to be more curious about their surroundings rather the centre object, it dose not make sense to study anything else before one understands what he is study with.

 

We can say we are a bunch of cells, and speak in biological terms. However, that does not answer the question. It will be inserting that Shakespeare is no much different from Leonardo da Vince. Both humans both breathe like a human, think like a human, act like a human, react like a human. Sure we can take a DNA test, which shall most definitely separate them. Is that where our conclusion lay? Are we that ignorant of our own being that we’d take the short-cut on this? There must be a way to distinguish the door-knocker from everyone else without bringing DNA into this.

 

Another question that needs to be considered is: what makes up who you are? We shall eventually come to ‘past experiences’. The past must have some effect on the present, after all the present is the build-up of the past. So what is the past? Since we can’t rewind time nor is a moment a material thing, it seems the only remaining we have of the past is the material belonging we own today. But moments of the past from a person of today can hardly be identified completely with three dimensional material belongings.

 

I think a statement we can make so far is that the body the starting point. All experiences are led by the biological organs and then taken into a perspective. The perspective is created by the progress of information being transferred to the brain then settling. For instance, one told a lie to a friend. The friend can transfer this situation to anything from a foolish mistake to a betrayal. How this friend chooses to interpret the situation wholly dependent his/ her internal resources, including past experiences, but there is one more ingredient. We can call it the soul. It is the identity generator of each individual. Because here aren’t always rational reasons within our actions or decision yet at times we tend to choose outside our logic, the identity generator’s function is to determine the actions at these situations.

 

Thus, one may not know necessary who they, but they will be who they. Unlike belongings, who they are can’t be lost or destroyed as the identity generator is immaterial and is always within them.