Probably the Best conclusion a movie has ever had or could have

But you probably would have to watch the movie to get it.
The movie was insanely good.
Just...Insanely good.
The real-to-life-ness of the film... (the pace... the friendly banter... the characters....their flaws their strengths...their personalities... their expressions) the intensity and message of the film..... insane.
Really struck a chord with me.

One of the best movies i have ever watched.

And then I found myself asking...

Why is it that i can believe at least on a superficial level that people have landed on the moon although i have never first-handedly experienced this knowledge, but not believe that there is a God that loves me?

and maybe then i dont really believe that people have landed on the moon or maybe because it isnt a knowledge that i have to deal with on a daily-basis.

Why we wake up in the morning everyday other than the conscious reasons we give ourselves.

We are in search of a better life.
That is the reason why we wake up every morning.
A chance to make life a little better, to change something.
Another chance at perfecting that pass, at holding back that anger, at showing love, at working out that problem sum, at restoring that relationship.
I think we live with a subconscious search of a better life.
And by implication this means that today, was good, could be great, but wasn't the best.
We are always consistently trying to reach or find the best.
And the funny thing is, how do we know that there even is 'the best'?
We do, because what we have done so far, experienced so far, as great as it is, has still not completely satisfied our unending desires.

We desire for infinity.
Because we were made for infinity.
I think it is amazing that our desires never end, but we as humans in the physical body do.
And i think this might possibly be an indication of an after-life.

this time 18 years ago... it was the last day in my mother's womb.

(Warning: This post is terribly incoherent largely because loud music was playing. If you manage to follow, you have amazing cognitive abilities)

I don't think the church is a contradiction, i think it is a paradox.
(And i know paradox is essentially a self-contradiction but it is not just a contradiction, it is a contradiction that is found to be true.)

Church is a holy gathering of sinners. (see..)
But then if you really think about it, ALL of Life is a paradox.
We live to die.
We spend to earn. (if you are a keynesian)
And... many others which i can't think of at this precise moment but i am sure you are able to name a few yourself.

my point is... at the end of the day... the things that really hold true are paradoxes.

Anyways, lately I have been sort of... battling Christianity. Or as we now know it to be.
Just a few thoughts i have about it.....
I just feel that there are just too many inconsistencies in our faith today that have arisen out of the selective choosing by man of man's thinking/interpretation of the Bible in the past (and even now). And this has proliferated into modern day Christianity. And by that i mean, we have inherited this, multi-factional brand of C. These selections have birthed this version of modern day Christianity that is of many versions of Christianity i.e the multitude of denominations.

And sometimes I really wonder how sound these schools of thought are anyways. In a way, I am building my faith on someone elses' received revelation of God if you think about it. And whatsmore... half the time, i dont even know who that someone else is. I mean really... in church we dont talk about St. Thomas Aquinas much do we?? (or at least not from where i come and unless you're taking a theology class) and maybe that's because this faith isn't supposed to be centered on man but God. But the funny thing is, this faith is very much developed by both Man and God. I just...I find myself asking... how do we know when is the time for another martin luther moment? if it is even needed in the first place. How are we to be so sure that this faith, that has been developed (largely by man's perception and received revelation) over 2000 years, is still what it was about 2000 years ago? I have realised in my reading up, that Christianity is much like academia. We build on it over the years. Each new era comes along and there's a new interpretation/development in Christianity..a change in christian thinking, sometimes a radical change like the martin luther reformation. Yet, Sometimes just more confusion, uncertainty and question marks (per-determination or free will?)

Ergo, when the elders keep telling me to go back to the Word and to personally search for it, I think to myself, 'but wouldnt everything i will be/am interpreting of the Bible, be greatly affected by the era i am now living in?' Very much of the Bible I will be/am perceiving is based on how much humanity has developed, or as human development now stands today. For eg what I call 'The relaxation and death of formality of human relations', how parents have now become their childrens' friends (and in a way losing that fear and sometimes proper respect for the parent) and so has our perception of God that He is our 'friend', a peer, as opposed to the slave and master relationship in the past (before it was illegal) where God was our master and we were His slaves.

But then again, this might not exactly be a problem because if you think about it, maybe the things God was saying in the past and is saying to the present IS different. I mean duhhh... How can we expect God to repeat Himself... for more than as long as life has been around..? Surely as humanity has progressed, God has a different message for that progression...right??

So the thing is... we are suppose to (and invariably will) glean different messages from the exact same passage in the Bible since the Bible itself cannot change, therefore our opinion or perception of it has to. This really makes me wonder whether the kind of God we worship is very much the same as the kind of God the shepherds used to worship.( i know i said this before already) Like if i had a time machine and went back to Father Abraham's time, i wonder how differently or similarly we will describe our God, and whether we will exchange weird quizzical looks to each other when the description has been offered.

Ok i guess the bottom line of the last 4 incoherrent paragraphs is this:
1. How accurate is our fundamental perception of God today as compared to... say... Jesus' day granted that each era will perceive Him differently as according to the conditions of their time?

And when we have answered that, i guess only then can we know whether it is time for another martin luther moment.

Another thought I have is that... I think one of the main problems in Christianity today is the same problem it faced in St. Paul's time. It is still very much mutually exclusive. And by that i mean, here is the world and everything in it (politics, economics, social movements etc), and here is Christianity. Or at least that is the way C is from where i am. The divide between secularism and religion. Sure it can be used as an ideal and in fancy speeches but when it comes down to it there is still this divide. And i get it, i get that, we have to do this in order for multi-everything and thereafter stability and progress to take place... but I dont know... it just seems to me that the times of C in King David's day is very different as opposed to what it is today. In the sense of the countless wars the Israelites went to in the Old testament to rid their land of pagans as opposed to our multi-everything policy of today. I mean... if you actually adopted the OT kind of stand in politics today you'll just be labelled an extremist.

And then there's science. Which some might argue it pushes for C and others against it.

Sigh.

I don't know.
Ah-ha!
And there we have another of life's paradoxes: the more you learn, the more you don't know.

But i guess...in a way, the beauty in life is in its paradox. the irreconcilable truths.

Fascinating.

This is why you should watch vimeo instead of youtube.

The Future Belongs to the Curious from Skillshare on Vimeo.

they have phenomenal videos like this.

guess what i did today.

hehehe. ;)

so because i am so lazy and constipated in my thoughts that i'll just let the photos do the talking.

This is how my December 2011 went by.

How He Loves

This song has always and forever will have a special place in my heart.
I love it, i really do.
And I, 100% agree with what John (the writer/singer of the song) said about Love.

Love hurts. Yet Love heals. And unfortunately, we need to hurt before we can heal.

Should go listen to this from the album, super powerful.

equating $ to time.

is one of the many tell-tale signs society is in the process of degradation.

When you think of the countless things you can achieve with the luxury of time (hearing the last few words of a beloved before he/she passes on, having an epiphany on a 17 year old problem, reconciling with people who mean something to you, sharing a laugh with your best friend, feeling the freedom of forgiveness from a life-long grudge you had against someone...and the list goes on..) simply equating the value of it all to a single and utterly inadequate form of power, money, is just.... not right.
for one, you cheapen the value of time and all that it can be achieved in it... no actually you are saying all those moments in life can be bought, which is not even logical because it is not even possible.
Secondly, you cheapen the equals sign (=) because it is NOT equal.

When we live with the mentality, (get caught up with the motions of the day... of work... of productivity... of capitalist mindsets) that time is money period, you are really reducing yourself to a mere factor of production to the economy.
You are, by choice, reducing yourself to a system that is inherently flawed, a system you most likely would not agree with (unless you are not poor).
You are, in short, closing up the number of ways in which you can live life.
& there are so many ways you can live life, but sometimes we get caught up with the generic flow of things.
we let the majority, establishment and major events dictate the way in which we live our lives.
why?

are not all man created equal and free? (sounds so declaration of indep of U.S)
why are we surrendering our freedom up to a cause we do not even like?
it is like purposely enslaving yourself to serve a person whom you absolutely hate, and yes we are doing this willfully just because, we look around and that is what everyone seems to be doing, no?

I mean, if not, you would not be normal right? that is normal right??
working hard, getting rich, having a stable family, living 'the life' and then you die.
doing otherwise would be.... crazy, no?

who is the real crazy?
the one who lives out of honesty and is perceived to be crazy or the one who lives out of fear and pretense just so he/she can be perceived as normal?

why i like to make life difficult for myself.

in the Singaporean context, if you do something in which the outcome has no tangible benefits or pragmatic use in relation to daily life but only difficulty in the process, it is called 'making life difficult' for one's self.

one of the many phrases thrown at me throughout this year in particular is, 'why do you like to make life difficult for yourself?' or in otherwords, if a cause has no tangible benefits or pragmatic use in daily life, why bother doing it? OR why are you troubling yourself with something in which you will not be graded on?

now. just imagine, a world in which no one pursued anything which had no tangible benefit to themselves or serve any function in getting on with their daily life.
we would not have discovered the theory of relativity. (or any scientific theory for that matter and all their implications)
we would not the internet.i.e you would not be reading this now.
we would not have lightning conductors. (houses will all be burnt down to the ground especially in Singapore)
we would not know what cancer is.
in short, we would not have progressed.
we would still be in the dark ages, writing on the insides of cave walls, grunting at one another.
it is precisely the spirit of questioning that has got us this far.

the world is the way it is because someone, somewhere, along the lines of history, 'made life difficult' for themselves.

so.... why do i make life 'difficult' for myself...?
as cliche and as high a probability that this might not happen, changing the world in a substantial and positive way is on my life's agenda.

Sometimes i really wonder....

what. on. earth. am. i. doing.
really.
what.

yes there is a time to be lost, a place for confusion.
but seriously, isn't this just. too. much?

we were born into the fight

I want to say that life is worth living.
WORTH living.
despite it all.
despite how transient it all is.
here today and gone the next day.
despite how fragile and temporal everything is.
including the things we place value on.
it is really as the philosopher says in Ecclesiastes, meaningless.

so then, what would make life worth living.
really.
the enjoyment?
fleeting pleasures?
what is the point.
what really is the point of life if it is all going to just fade into nothingness as time goes on.
and for the those with noble ambitions, what is the point of going down in history and being remembered if the impact you are going to make is only going to last as long as the lifespan of an average person? yes that person will fade away someday too.
and although there might be repercussions on future generations, if future generations are just going to die off (yes its one whole self-repeating cycle), what then is the inherent value of that?
what is the point?
eventually everything dies off.... no?
what is the point of enriching the whole human race if they are going to die out individually, and eventually?
there is no true value in that if you think about it.

And in order for life to be worth living, there has to be some true value in it.
And as we have already agreed, true value cannot have an expiry date.
If not it cannot be considered true value.
Therefore, this means we acknowledge that in order for something to be of true value, it has to be timeless. not restricted by time. it has to last.

Hence the only way in which this life would ever make sense and thereafter be worth living is when we have an eternal cause that we are living for. something that will defy the barriers of time. something that will last. and i mean forever. Yes i know forever is hard to comprehend, sorry i mean it is impossible to comprehend because as we are now in the human state, we are limited, finite beings so obviously there is no way we are going to comprehend forever.
But how about imagining. i think we'll probably have better 'luck' with that.

Reason begets Being. (what i took away from school of thought's lecture)

It sometimes really amazes me how logical people think they are, what with their lives and everything but yet make zero sense when it comes to the purpose of their existence.
And by this i mean...they have to make sense of everything in their lives but they do not make sense of their life in totality. which is really kinda ironic.
because that is like saying there must be a reason why there are road signs on the road but no reason why there are roads.
Well i say.... reason begets being.
it is a simple logic really.
just look around you.
for everything that you see, there is a reason why it exists.
a pen, to write.
an eraser, to erase.
a rubik's cube (being), to exercise one's brain (reason).
nothing exists for no reason.
likewise, we came into being, (were born into this world, survived pregnancy and possibly a 1001 disasters that could have happened to us) because of a reason.
we were born out of a purpose and a reason.
and obviously this suggests a higher power, a supreme being who had a reason for us to come into being just like the way a pen came into being because we wanted (reason) to write.

unfortunately unlike a belt or a guitar, the reason in which we exist is not quite as clear.
why do humans exist?
well... go figure.
haha.
but i would say that there is a generic reason in which we exist, and there is a specific reason in which we exist.
just like the way words exist to carry a message, and how each word adds a different flavour to the message/story.

we are words in a story.
the true meaning of our existence is dependent on an external reason by something greater than ourselves and this is the only way that such a short life could ever possibly make sense, and therefore this makes life worth living.

Will there ever come a time/place where questioning is wrong?

I am sure you must have heard that too much of a good thing is a bad thing.
Well, what about the neutral things? like questioning?
Will there ever come a time when questioning becomes.... wrong? or invalid or out of place?
Heh. How ironic for this is a question in itself.

Can't get enough of this

I dont mean to be a beliber (however you spell it) but... i really can't get enough of this.
His rendition of this song is just so good.
Plus he's really cute here.
And i dont mean this like.... in the whole 'OMG HE'S SO CUTE.' gush gush gush kind of thing.
I mean cute as in... child-like kind of cute.
And i think that's what sets him apart from many other teens who can also sing.
He is just being him and doing what he loves best.
Sigh it must be quite the experience being this famous at 17.
Golly i would just go with it if i were him too. heh.

i am thinking....

you know how when people are in the same or similar situations you would say that they are 'in the same boat'?

well, i've realised recently that there are many people on my boat.
and you would think that since that there are so many people on my boat, i/we wouldnt feel so bad, except that the boat i am on is completely silent.

Sometimes even if you are in a similar situation as someone, or maybe because you are in a similar situation as that someone or someones, you realise you have nothing to say.
no advice to offer.
no direction to give.
maybe the most you can do is offer a sense of silent comfort.
the kind of comfort that says 'i know what you are going through, i am right here with you' without really saying anything.

i am on the same boat as so many others, but it's a really silent boat.
we are on the same quiet boat in a raging storm.
and hopefully, it isnt sinking.
but on the other hand if it does sink, at least it will force us to learn how to swim. (i can't swim)



The RMS Titanic.

You know i just watched the movie Titanic. Loved/love it.
And i think to myself, maybe being on a sinking ship isnt so bad after all.
Jack encountered true (well) love. Never before experienced in his vagabond existence. even right through the end, he stayed through to his convictions of life being one grand adventure. he was consistent from his beginning till his end.
And rose, well rose found life in her near death experience. freedom from expectations. from societal norms. from marrying a guy and into a life that wasn't her.
Titanic, a disaster to most, was the best thing that could have ever happened to them.

not all disasters are catastrophic after all eh?
what is your titanic?