Before I fall into my usual pitfall of "I'll get back to this when I have the time to", I should do this the very moment any thoughts flickered in my mind. For now, let me attempt to trace back my train of thoughts or at least unearth what's left of me.
I haven't blogged since I arrived in the US.
Firstly, the United States of America. For everything in the world, there are good and bad sides of things. I could go on forever outlining these. For now, know that I find the academics challenging but loving it. Washington DC is amazingly stimulating (especially when you are 1.5 miles away from the embassy -- you get called up for teleconference with the PM, you get to know diplomats, you get to make connections with Ministers of Malaysia when they are in DC, you get to visit the Supreme Court, think-tanks, non-profits and et cetera). I love the intellectual vibe. The fact that the influence of power is lingering around every corner is scary. The world is real.
I decided to take a weekend off to escape the campus and went for an Entrepreneurship Seminar organized by the ministries. We were sponsored a 3 days 2 nights stay in the hotel; so I took the chance to 'Zen' out - soak in a warm bath tub, walked around the pool, and slept on posh beds (in comparison to my current social reality: triplet dorms + community bathroom; don't take it wrong, I'm contented though :) ).
Ok, I'm getting too long-winded here. I need to speak to the research librarian. Be sharp and quick, Vienna!
Basically, this little time off was really an reenergize+refocus break for me :)
Now, my thoughts:
- The seminar can be carried out with much more inherent values and success. A 2 full days lecture about entrepreneurship is similar to the futile attempt of lecturing someone into knowing how to ride a bike. I proposed in my feedbacks that the next entrepreneurship seminar should consist of a proposal contest coupled with mentorship of capable personalities.
- Malaysia government is realizing. Look, they brought together the MARA, JPA, Petronas etc. scholars (who're mostly in bio-technology), and attempt to leverage the advantage of our resource rich country by teaching the scholars entrepreneurship skills. The government also promised lots of government assistance.
- Philosophy (I wanna talk about it :P) is an enjoyable time waster. Thoughts: Is there a way to rationally prove something beyond the five senses we have?
Also, I need to be able to prove to Americans that democracy is not necessarily the best system because other regimes has never been executed properly (communism and theological government unfortunately falls in the wrong hands and the wrong time in history). Taking the side for theological government, I argued that if you value human life and materialism no more than spirituality (as with the case with hindus and buddhist), the merits of why democracy is better - higher life expectancy which translates into higher quality of life/good life - is no more better than the 'good life' defined by religion as being attuned with your spirituality, and the leaders who rule are the noble religious man (say, Dalai Lama), why isn't theology government better?
- I shared my grievance as a Chinese to my new fellow Malay friends in my belief that ideas and change are like ripples of water. The day when we start living in Malaysia from each other's shoes, there can be no where else closer to heaven on earth than Malaysia.
- I shared with my fellow Malaysians in excitement: the joy of mamaking, the genuinely nice people, the food, the culture, the price, the warmness, the niceness :))
- No, I can't potentially exhaust this list of thoughts. Just to prove that you don't want to know about what's going on in my mind...
Thoughts: Are feelings grounded rationally?
Is there morality? Is there justice? Is there right and wrong? Is there values?
Are all these socially constructed ideas or part of innate human nature? If they are not socially constructed ideas, why are they relative?
For now, my view -- perhaps there are no such things as justice, morality, and values beyond the fact that they are just socially invented concepts. Nevertheless, they are vehement to the society.
[Even if I know that I was injected the idea - of filial piety - to love my mom, I still love my mom just because :) ]
Haha, i shall persevere to be an self-knowing but adamant irrationalist, because I'm no robot; I am an ENFP :P
See, I told you. Blogging about my thoughts is a bad idea because my thoughts are like a spider web (nothing in the world doesn't intrigue me) and the things I think about is boring. I'm boring :P
Hi.
ReplyDeleteI seldomly encounter people who are really in favor of theology democracy. As a Muslim, I believe that Islam has a guide in every single aspect of the human life, which also includes politics. Alas some group of ppl are not following the guide when dealing with domestic issues and still claim they are implementing Islamic Law, which has resulted people into believing Islamic Law is full of violence. Nevertheless, proving Americans are wrong might end you up in writing a book about it. Jk
Since you have thoughtful, inspiring ideas, just keep on writing.