30 Things to do before you turn 30

30. Have your portrait painted or photographed

29. Write a novel

28. Complete a marathon race

27. Learn to play a musical instrument

26. Kiss a member of the same sex

25. Dance in the rain

24. Visit the Eiffel Tower and see Monalisa in the Louvre

23. Take a gondola ride in Venice

22. Go camping

20. Buy an expensive watch or handbag worth at least half your salary

19. Have your picture in a magazine

18. Go to Disneyland

17. Have something named after you

16. Go to Hawaii

15. Watch a musical or play

14. Learn to ride a bicycle or roller blades

13. Walk the Great Wall of China

12. Touch snow

11. Be on TV

10. Try an exotic dish

9. Dye your hair a ridiculous colour

8. Attend a Ball

7. Swim in the sea

6. Climb a mountain

5. Live in another country for a while

4. Buy an apartment and turn it into your dream home

3. Work for a cause you believe in

2. Fall in love

1. Buy a round-the-world ticket and go backpacking

Cry Havoc!

This, although not completely original, has been EXTENSIVELY rewritten in the commentary following the excerpt.  The unchanged original may be found here: Cry Havoc!

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From Julius Caesar

ANTONY:
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter’d with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.

Shakespeare

“Ate” is not a typo.  Ate by Caesar’s side is the goddess of Ruin and Strife.  and she is “come hot from hell.”

“Infants quarter’d?”  All pity choked with custom of fell deeds?”

Doesn’t sound like such a new thing to me, being a “custom” and all . . .

Today we call it “collateral damage.”  Makes it sound a little nicer, thinkst thou?

There is much said in the news media about the horrors of war, especially toward “non-combatants.”

Gone are the days when armies face one another on fields outside of cities and villages and blast away at each other only. Sherman marched through and burnt Atlanta. Hitler rained V2s on London. We burnt Dresden to a crisp. Japan raped Nanking. We nuked the shit of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Saddam gassed the Kurds (in his OWN country!) People use women and children as SHIELDS to discourage being attacked. I gots lots more examples, let’s stop for now though.

People innocent and guilty die in war. Sherman himself said “War is hell.” He wasn’t kidding. I ain’t kidding either. War is hell and killing innocents is horrendous and makes me violently ill. But it’s war, folks. What ya gonna do? Go back to lining up in cornfields with muskets? It ain’t gonna happen.

Besides, how are you going to convince one side or the other that they need to give up? Shoot just troops? That takes forever because troops are the ones who are ready and willing to die in the first place. As long as they got bullets and fresh young bodies to throw into the meat-grinder it ain’t gonna happen. Sherman had the right idea. Attack the civilian base. You want the other side to turn against war quickly? Kill women, children, and old men. It’s the old men who are keeping the fields fresh with young boys anyway.

Kill them all. God will sort out the “innocents” when the time comes.  It may seem very hard and cold to think about it this way, but what is the alternative, to wring our hands over a human condition that is unchangeable?

It’ll come to an end someday.

The day we stop killing one another and innocents are not victims of war will be the day when there is no more war, period.  It will also be the day when the Prince of Peace will begin His eternal reign.

c.e.s.

The Internet, The Pirate Bay and Civil Liberties!

Four men linked to the popular filesharing site, The Pirate Bay,  were convicted on of breaking Sweden’s copyright law by helping millions of users freely download music, movies and computer games on the internet.

The quartet, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lunstrom, were sentenced to one year each in prison. On top of that, they were also ordered to pay danages of 30 mil kronor (Rm13 million) to a series of entertainment companies (Warner Bros, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI and Columbia Pictures).

The Pirate Bay has an estimated 22 million users that download content through torrent files. The site had become the No 1 enemy of the entertainment industry after successful court actions against Grokster and Kazaa.

Defense lawyers of the Pirate team argued that The Pirate Bay do not host any copyright-protected material themselves. Instead, the site only provides a forum for its users to download content through torrent technology (allows users to transfer parts of a large file from several different users which increase download speeds).

The court on the other hand, found the defendants guilty of helping users to commit copyright violations. The defendants were found guilty of providing a website with sophisticated (it is simple, really) search functions, simple download and storage capabilities and through the tracker linked to the website.

How Simple is Life?

How Simple is Life?

 

Life is simple.

 Or it might not be.

 To simplify something, it must first be complicated in order for one to simplify it, yes?

So life is complicated.

 Or it might not be.

 To complicate something, it must first be simple in order for one to complicate it, no?

 To define something, we should first understand it.

 So, what is life?

 I wouldn’t dare to give a conclusive answer.  After all, I’ve only had 16 years of it.  However, there is one thing I know – With life, comes death.  Wherever there is life, there must be, or eventually will have, death.

 So, what is death?

 I can’t answer that question for sure.  In fact, I’m not sure anyone can!  Those who know are in absolutely no condition to tell us about it.

 Since death is so closely linked to life that one cannot be without the other, isn’t it necessary to understand death in order to understand life?

 To understand something, we should first gain knowledge about it.

 Does knowledge simplify things or complicate it?

 Would a simple, short explanation of a complicated thing give you more knowledge than a complicated, lengthy explanation of a simple thing? Or vice versa?

 I guess it depends.

 So we can’t understand death.

 Neither can we understand life.

 So the next time someone tells you life is simple, ask them -

 How simple is it?

Strings that bind us together

What would you do if you had one day, just one day to make up for any regrets that you had?  What if you were given this opportunity, just one day, to fix anything that went wrong in the past?  What would you do?  What would you change? Would you have done things differently?  Would you have said something else?  Would you have grabbed at that opportunity that passed by?  Would you have stepped forward instead of turning away?

I wouldn’t.  Sure, there might have been times in the past where things might have been different if I did something different.  But what we sometimes fail  to realise is that something else comes up as a consequence of that so-called “wrong” action.  Perhaps indirectly, it did bring about something good, if not in your life, then in someone elses’.  I believe that something good comes out of even the worst things.  Not directly, but indirectly.  I believe that things are inexplicably tied to each other like a hypothetical musical instrument where you pluck one string and some other string in the far distance resonates with it, while the string that was plucked is unaware of that.  Sometimes we look back and get upset by something that could be.  Nevertheless what is in the past is only a distortion of memory.  We remember what we choose to, and leave out what we don’t wish to remember, so more often than not, memory isn’t accurate.  We idealise what we want to believe.  Truth is, what “could have been” would probably not have been even if we did it in the “ideal way”.

Thinking of what if-s will only make one depressed.  Why look back on a chapter that has already passed by?  What use will thinking about what could have been or what should have been?  It’s not like we can go back and change the past.  Life is short.  Just seize what you have TODAY and forget about the past.

What would you do if you have that one day to go back and change things?  Forget about it.  You won’t be getting that one day.  Not now, not ever.

Because all history is, is to remind us that we can make a better future.

Knowledge and Ignorance

“Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.”

~ Sir Francis Bacon

Knowledge is preferable than sheer ignorance. With knowledge, one gains and grants acceptance rather than being discriminated and shunned for every distinct mental and physical aspect of ones identity. In contrast, ignorance fosters discrimination of the highest form both in hateful and vengeful desire to destroy what it cannot understand. The old French proverb is right in saying that to know all, is to forgive all.

In essence, the highest form of knowledge is a call to tolerance from all fronts on the things that the masses argue with great fervor and vitality. The world may prove to be a more peaceful and harmonious place for existence if all men had knowledge. Why fight when we already know what must be done and what should be done? Would it not be futile to fight over things that have already been settled by reasoning and understanding?

Yet contrary to its highest form, knowledge is often feared for both the power she wields and the discipline needed to nurture her growth and attainment. More often than not, knowledge is not used to foster the unity in diversity and order in chaos but to gain an advantage over fellow men and as a means to personal ends. Such is the sorrow of the world for no one man can change his environment and instead changes himself to suit his environment.

Nevertheless, the saying goes that in order to change the world, one must first change himself. In line with this, one must speak the truth not only to others, but more importantly, to himself. As Schopenhauer has put it, life is short, but the truth works far and long; let us speaks the truth. But what is the truth, but a bag of beliefs and opinions? How do we prove  that we know the truth of anything at all?

“Life is short, but the truth works far and long; let us speak the truth.”

~ Schopenhauer

The mortal mind comprehends things in terms of cause and effect, action and reaction. Even a baby knows how and when to cry when in need of his mother’s milk just as adults work in order to gain a means of existence. Yet the difference between cause and effect is one that no simple mind can easily differentiate. Like almost everything else in the world, cause and effect forms a loop to which their separation and distinction is filled with obscurity. The egg for example, is both the cause of a chicken and the effect of a chicken.

Barring the inconclusiveness of the issue, we establish the fact that the goal of knowledge is the attainment of the truth. The truth in this context is the truth of reality that is independent of our senses and experiences and thus true even for our fathers and forefathers. Holding this as the constant, which is the cause and which is the effect of knowledge would become inconsequential as both elements become essential.

All forms of knowledge whether in art or in science is essentially a product of both philosophy and history. Knowledge is a philosophy is the sense that it must be a product of thought and empirical study while it is also history because it is the product of a process either by thought or by observation in the past. Ironically, many people regard both philosophy and history as impractical and of no substantial use in society. In this matter, the majority is often fooled by the subtlety and shyness of wisdom’s knowledge.

Being both a product and process of philosophy and history, knowledge stands firm on its two feet. The first, is faith and the second, is doubt. In saying faith, I do not mean only the theological faith of religions but the faith in ones opinions and hypothetical inference on any object or matter than invades ones mind. Equally essential to any knowledge is doubt that Bacon, Descartes and Locke so frequently stressed upon.

“Know thyself.”

~ Socrates

The foundation of knowledge lies between both the conflicting elements of faith and doubt. Whether faith or doubt is the cause or the effect is inconsequential because the two of them must act in a synchronized manner in order to produce any knowledge of substantial value. Proper knowledge is therefore only attained when the mind turns back and examines itself. This is the key tenet that forms the backbone of all Western philosophy.

“I keep six honest serving men: They taught me all I knew: Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.”

~ Rudyard Kipling

Only through doubt, can the Socratic Method of which a series of questions is used to distill the truth of a subject matter be of any practical value to an individual. If one has no doubt, one would not need to seek the truth because one would have absolute knowledge of everything. Since absolute knowledge is not within the realm of mortal mind, one would be wise indeed to doubt everything that can be subject to scrutiny.

The Socratic Method did not just demand questions but accurate definitions. For the ideal definition of definitions, we must look at both Plato, student of Socrates and Aristotle, student of Plato. According to Plato, there are universal forms, generalizations and regularities that are permanent in the world. This means that if a triangle is a two dimensional shape with three sides and a total of 180 degrees, all two dimensional shapes with three sides and a total of 180 degrees are triangles.

“If you wish to converse with me, define your terms.”

~ Voltaire

Aristotle, who disagreed with his mentor on many things, simply brought the universal forms of Plato to higher degree. Aristotle said that every good definition must contain two distinctive parts. First, one must assign the subject or object in question to a class or group whose general characteristics are also its own. After doing so, one must also assign the characteristics of the object that differs from all other members of its class. The ideal definition according to Aristotle would be the process and product of both induction and deduction.

Having going through the three main philosophers of ancient Greece, one must now reexamine the fundamental understanding of knowledge itself. At its core, knowledge is the outcome between faith and doubt. Through faith and doubt, one would learn relationship between a cause and effect or an action and reaction that is either in subject to the mind or matter. The process of induction and deduction is then used with the purpose of establishing a truth that is true prior to the individual’s experiences and senses.

Another aspect of knowledge is in the nature of the variables that are present and relevant. In order to understand something, one must clearly define the constant variable and also the changing variable. The movement of time, for example, is a constant variable. The degree of erosion of different objects relative to time is a changing variable. Therefore, when one says that the only thing that does not change is change itself, he is establishing both a constant variable and a changing variable in relation to one another.

The relations between the constant variable and the changing variable are the truth that knowledge so ardently seeks. For nothing in this world that is observable exist as a total stand alone object, oblivious to its external environment or the internal matter that constitutes its form. The highest achievement of knowledge is the establishment of absolute and constant principles that is independent of relative and changing variables. This is the nature of knowledge.

Chapter 1: Dimensions

 

Chapter 1 Dimensions

 

April 16

Year 2019

Miami, U.S.A.

 

                Ethan felt as though he was in a dream.  It was quiet, peaceful, serene.  He was floating, without a worry in the world.  Nothing could go wrong…

 

                A small suspicion began to creep into the corner of his mind.  Where was he?  He couldn’t remember how he got here.  In fact, he didn’t seem to have any memory at all.  Yet, he felt so calm, it felt so good…

               

                Too good to be true…

 

                As soon as he finished the thought, his surroundings changed completely.  He no longer felt like he was hovering between somewhere and nowhere.  It felt much more real now.  He glanced around.  

               

                Ethan was in a room surrounded by four walls.  Directly in front of him was a grand mahogany door.  To his left was a plain white door, and to his right was a door made out of bronze.  Each door seemed to have a kind of attracting force, luring him, pulling him closer…

 

                What’s happening?

 

                Something moved in the corner of his eye.  Ethan whirled around in alarm, only to find himself reflected in the mirror which hung on the opposite wall of the mahogany door.  There seemed to be nothing special about it.  It was just that, a mirror.

 

                Ethan glanced from the mirror back to the three doors.

 

                Which to choose…?

 

                Mahogany. 

 

                Ethan walked over to the richly colored reddish-brown door, turned the handle, and pushed.

 

                It was another room.  He walked in further, hardly noticing the mahogany door closing softly behind him.  There was something strange that he just couldn’t put his finger on.  The room looked like an old-fashioned dining room.  The floor was covered with a white carpet.  There was a long, rectangular, wooden table in the center, with chairs pushed neatly in. Ethan was facing the head of the table and the fireplace behind it.  Portraits and paintings were hanging on the walls.  There was one painting of the sea at sunrise.  The glow of the sun, the shimmer in the waves, the ripples in the seawater, the beauty of everything, it was captured perfectly.  It seemed almost normal…

 

                Then, he realized it.  The sun was under the water.

 

                It was upside-down.

 

                The room was upside-down.

               

                He was upside-down.

 

                Just when Ethan realized what was wrong, the room started spinning.  Despite his frantic struggle, he couldn’t keep himself upright.  He had absolutely no idea which way was up.  He felt himself falling…

               

                Suddenly, as though nothing had happened, Ethan found himself standing again.

 

                Standing in the very same room he was in earlier with the very same four walls, the very same three doors, and the very same mirror that he was now facing. 

 

                The mahogany door was still there, daring him to go through it again.

 

                Which door now?

 

                The bronze one.

 

                Ethan made his way over to the bronze door.  Just as he was pushing it open, he heard a voice.

 

                “Wake up…”

 

                It was a female.  It sounded distant, and vaguely familiar.  But just as suddenly as it was heard, it faded away.

 

                Ethan stepped through the bronze door, and found himself in yet another room.

 

                Big surprise.

 

                This room was also old-fashioned.  It looked like part of a museum.  There were glass display cases all around him, all empty.  The only display case that had something in it was at the very center of the room.  It was on a small platform, raised just a little higher than the others in the room.  Ethan walked over to it.

 

                Inside the display case was a small model of a mansion.  It was perfectly done, the walls, the doors, the windows, even the lawn looked real.

 

                In fact, it looked too real…

 

                The mansion, along with the display case, was growing larger.  Or was Ethan shrinking?  He wasn’t sure.  It grew, or he shrank, until the mansion loomed majestically before him.  There was no one else around.  Ethan was standing in front of the large oak front doors.  The sky above him looked transparent.  Or was it the glass of the display case?

 

                Then everything seemed to creep closer to Ethan, enclosing him…The glass-like sky was shrinking…

                With nowhere else to go, he frantically pushed the mansion doors open and ran inside.  The shrinking didn’t stop.  The walls of the mansion were closing in on him.  Ethan ran, not caring where his legs were leading him to.  A few turns and he was in a long corridor, the walls still growing closer, threatening to crush him…

 

                Why aren’t I shrinking?

 

                Ethan took another turn, threw himself through the first door he saw, only to find himself yet again in the room with the three doors and mirror.  The bronze door slammed behind him.

 

                Somehow, Ethan had expected this to happen.  It was a never-ending nightmare.  He was never going to get out…

 

                Then he heard it again.

 

                “Wake up!”

 

                It sounded more urgent this time, but Ethan couldn’t locate its source.

 

                Now what?

 

                It wasn’t a question, really.  There was only one door left.

 

                Pushing open the plain white door, Ethan was a bit surprised.

 

                This time, he was in a jungle.  The plain white door behind him disappeared.  There were enormous trees around him, almost blocking out the sunlight; there was a river running through the trees; there were plants and leaves covering the ground.  Again, like every other place he had been in, there was something wrong about it.

 

                Ethan stared around him in irritation.  His gaze stopped on the river.

 

                It was still.

 

                The water was stagnant, it wasn’t moving at all.  There were no ripples.  There was no cool breeze.  Even the trees seemed strangely still.  Nothing was moving, no signs of life, everything had paused.

 

                Time had paused.

 

                Everywhere Ethan looked there was no way out.  There were trees in every direction blocking his path.  His heart beat faster and faster as he turned around and around, desperately searching for an escape, refusing to believe that time was non-existent, searching for something, anything…

 

                But wait…Something hadn’t stopped…

 

                His heart was still beating…It had never stopped…

 

                So that must mean…Time still hasn’t stopped…

 

                Immediately, a gushing sound was heard as the water in the river flowed.  A breeze blew Ethan’s hair slightly, the leaves on the ground were lifted slightly in the wind; the sun shined brighter…Brighter and brighter…Ethan shielded his eyes…

 

                Then the sound of flowing water, the breeze, the sunlight, everything vanished…

 

                And when Ethan opened his eyes a second later, he was standing right in the center of the room, facing the mirror, with the mahogany door behind him.

 

                “AARRGH!!!”

 

                Ethan screamed in frustration.  He’d tried each door, what else was there left to do?  He faced his reflection in the mirror, thinking hard…

 

                Then it hit him.

 

                The answer had been in front of him all the time, he just hadn’t realized it…

 

                He was the answer.  He had been doing this.  He had been creating this…illusion…

 

                Ethan reached his hand out and touched the mirror…

 

                “WAKE UP!”

 

                The mirror shattered, and the room seemed to shatter along with it.  He was floating, falling, shrinking, all at the same time…

 

                And suddenly, he was staring into his twin sister Elizabeth’s blue eyes filled with concern.  Her hands were on his shoulders, still shaking him in an obvious effort to wake him.

 

                “It happened again, didn’t it?” She asked.

 

                “Yes.”

 

                Ethan sat up on his bed.  A glance through his open window showed the sun just beginning to rise.

 

                “How did you know?” Ethan asked.

 

                “I sensed it, just like before.” Elizabeth replied.  “Are you alright?” She asked.

 

                “I am now.”

Raison d’etre: The Reason and Reality of Mind and Matter

The world is known by the mind through logic, senses and experiences. For each individual, the world is a picture painted distinctively different than that of every other individual in existence. To say that reality however, is an illusion is a premature thought. Instead, it is the way reality is perceived that differs from every known conscious mind. In saying so, reality for every individual should therefore be unique and a stand alone perception of the physical world.

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

~ Albert Einstein

Even if we step into another dream every time we awake from sleep, an independent reality persist as a constant and unchanging truth. Through imagination, we are able to conceive things or events that defy the laws of nature and physics. But even in doing so, all products of our imagination are but a combination of matter and ideas taken from a persistent and independent reality. Take for example, the ancient imaginary creatures of mythology. The minotaur is but the combination of a bull and a man while a mermaid, the combination of a fish and a woman.

Like a pendulum swinging back and forth and never stopping in the middle, so does our mind swing from one extreme to the other. We commonly think that certain things like ethics and morals are absolute principles when history have often proven that the accepted norm of moral and ethics change in each age. Consequently some people think that absolute relativism of morality is a possibility even though it is an absolute principle.  Obviously, this is  an impossibility because one cannot state that all absolute principles are ‘absolutely’ wrong. Indeed, this would be a great folly committed by an irrational mind.

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”

~ Rousseau

For anything to exist in its entirety, it must be for the observing mind both a cause and effect or an action and reaction. The egg for example, is the cause of the full grown chicken as certain as every egg is the effect of a full grown chicken. All things ranging from the mind and matter must therefore be understood not as a stand alone truth but as a sum of its relation with all other things known to the mind. Thus, it is impossible to understand something that is absolutely independent of everything that exist in reality.

The relationship between the society and the individual also falls into the boundaries of cause and effect. Every individual is the product of the society and is chained to a reality set by its immediate environment. From the other end, society would not exist without the individuals that give meaning to its existence. When relations are concerned, a book is only a book when it is treated and perceived like a book. Should a book fail to be read by a human being who understands the language used in its construction, the book degrades into a mere object or matter and thus not a book anymore. It is the human being, the creator of languages and its written forms that the book must exist for because without humans, the book loses its meaning of existence.

“All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone. Everything is in relation to everything else.”

~ Buddha

Reality is the product of the interactions and relations between the living and non-living, the conscious mind and the environment, the individual’s identity with society. A person’s identity and the justification of its existence is not independent from society. No man is an island or a hermit that is totally free from his environment.  Having said so, the conscious mind is only an incomplete factor that constitutes an individual’s identity. Throwing aside the consciousness of thought, memory and emotions, a person’s identity is also defined by the unconscious mind to which the individual has little or no control of.

What we think of ourselves is only a small fraction of the true reality of our identity. The understanding of ones ego is limited by the very same limitations that set the boundaries between absolute knowledge and that capable of human understanding. One must understand that although the philosopher Descartes advocated that one must look from inwards to outwards to understand himself and the world, it is also equally important to understand the relations of the external to the internal. In simple terms, we must know both the role we play in society and the role society plays in shaping our identity.

“I think, therefore I am.”

~ Descartes

I think, therefore I am is only ones perspective concerning himself and his external environment. According to this perspective, what I think concerning the role I play in the greater picture of society takes precedence over external factors. But since every other individual would also have a different perspective on the role I am playing in the world, both my perspective of myself and the perception of others about me would seldom agree with one another.  The combination of these two parts of one would show that an individual’s identity consists of the summation of all causes and effects of his existence to both the living and the non-living. Thus, I think, therefore I am must be coupled together with you think, therefore I am.

The other element that is essential that constitutes ones identity is time. For the better part of this essay, time is left out and identity is judge as a static object both rigid and without motion. In truth, this is impossible because time is an unstoppable flow from the past to future limiting all men by its current. A man is not only defined by what he has done but also by what he will do. Before World War II, Hitler was regarded even by some British as the savior of Germany and the hero that would defend Europe from Communism. After World War II, Hitler would always be remembered as the cruelest mass murderer the world has ever seen!

“Without knowing life, how can one know death?”

~ Confucius

The very sound of our heartbeat shows that we are the bounded by the flow of time. Like a clockwork toy edging closer to its end, the steady rhythm of our heart proves that we are both alive and moving closer to our death. As this process inevitably happens, our identity transcends from one form to another influencing more and more events in the physical world. An individual’s identity in contrast to the conventional wisdom, is not  just a static object but a dynamic growth to which the sum of all parts until our death and beyond is its true form.

As a person’s identity changes, so does his reason for being. This is probably the reason why ones perceived purpose in life is often changing as one ages. In fact, it would be exceedingly peculiar if an individual’s views and goals remain exactly the same after an interval of prolong development either in mind or in body. As certain as a person’s physical stature changes as he age, his state of mind is also compelled to change in relation to  his environment and condition.  Therefore, it is motion with its velocity and magnitude rather that a stationary unchanging element that is the fundamental constant of our identity.

“We know the mind, only as we know matter.”

~ David Hume

“How can we explain mind as matter, when we know matter only through the mind?”

~ Schopenhauer

It is extremely hard to determine which is the cause and which is the effect when it comes to the mind and matter. In an ever changing reality of time and space, it is the mind that understands matter although the mind resides within matter itself. While it is common to say mind over matter, one must remember that there is an independent reality separate from the mind’s ability to perceive it. The laws of gravity for example, holds true even before its formal discovery by Isaac Newton. In line with this, the truth that the Earth is not the center of the universe also holds true before its revelation by Copernicus.

The presence of an independent reality that we will not understand with absolute certainty is perhaps the clearest prove that our identity and mind is real. Consequently, this means that an absolute truth that is independent of the senses and experience is also possible should the boundaries to which this ‘truth’ revolves in is set with proper care and consideration. The limitations of these absolute truths, for example time, numbers and change, is limited only by the boundaries of a relative reality. This enables the possibility of an absolute truth to reside within a relative world.

While absolute knowledge is impossible for human beings, each and everyone of us can still learn enough to understand his purpose and reason for being. One must however, acknowledge that the answer to this can only be true relative to a certain environment within a limited time frame. It is an imperative that one must embark on a neverending journey to discover the very answer to the meaning of ones own existence.

A Brief Introduction to My Work

It is with great joy and honor that my essays have been read by an audience as excellent and as understanding as yourself! Every essay that receives a comment or a personal opinion from any individual whether for good or for ill, brings great motivation for me in continuing my research concerning the anomalies and normalities or our daily lives.

When I set up my site, Eternity in an Hour, my intentions were to write essays that would reveal a different perspective of the world than the conventional view. In doing so, it was never my intention to go against the norm simply because I wanted to go against the norm. Almost every essay concerning philosophy, economics and history have either gone through months of research or thorough thought.

I find it a sin to waste the time of anybody who reads my essays.

Each essay that I work on is a contribution to a larger picture. To me, each essay should broaden the view its readers including myself. Failing to do so would be the failure on my part rather than the failure of my readers to understand my essay. It is my view that a product that fails to sell itself is indeed flawed in some ways that the naked eye of its creator has failed to notice.

I am delighted to say that the Meditations have been in my personal view a success in many ways. Although not all who have read the Meditations agree entirely with my line of thought, I daresay this work stimulates a lot of thought in the mind of its readers. The Meditations took me a period of three years from the start to its completion. I regret to say that I was only able to reproduce only a brief summary of the whole paper at my site (this is done so that readers would be able to finish reading all seven essays in one view).

The Meditations

The First Meditation, Sapere Aude – The Limitations of Human Understanding

The First Interlude – Man Against Woman and The Downfall of Man

The Second Meditation, Ethos – The Limitations of  Ethics, Moral Philosophy, and Absolute Relativism

The Third Meditation, Utopia – The Limitations of Man’s Ambitions

The Second Interlude – Woman Against Man and The Ascent of Man

The Fourth Meditation, Politicus – The Limitations of Political Power

The Fifth Meditation, Armata – The Limitations of Military Might

The Sixth Meditation, Juno Moneta – The Limitations of Wealth and Money

The Third Interlude – Man and Woman

The Seventh Meditation, Homo Sapiens – The Limitations of Man and The Possibilities of Homo Superior

From the first to the seventh essay, I attempted to establish truths that were independent of experience. Each essay together with the interludes, have a point that stand alone by itself while also becoming the basis for the next meditation. The Meditations contain rigid ideas that stand the test of time. My other work on Evolution is the direct opposite of this principle. While the Meditations were written to establish constants, the works in Evolution were written to establish the various changes we face in our lives.

Evolution

Evolution and Atheism

The Infinity of Eternity and the Philosophy of Change

Geography – The Evolution of Earth

Language – The Evolution of Human Communication

Philosophy – The Evolution of Thought

Time – The Evolution of Reality

The works in Evolution is still in its infant stage. Although several new essays would soon be added to its vault, it is likely that this would be an ongoing assignment until the later days of my life. Also incomplete is my work on Education.

Education

The Learning Life-Cycle

Direction

Contributions

Evaluation

This is a brief list of the rest of my work:

Economics

The Impact of the Global Economic Slowdown on Malaysia

The Price Control Paradox

The Economics of High Oil Prices

Inflation: Challenges and Response

I am a terrible poet. But each poem attempts to reveal a personal view of mine.

Poetry Collections

Prayer

Beauty

Lover

Anger

Optimism

Shell

Chains

Permanence

Dreams

Change

Hopes

Please continue to support my site and my work! Any feedback and opinions would really be helpful! Thank you!

Time: The Evolution of Reality

Time is perhaps the most important element that exists in our world. It is hard to imagine the existence of any form of life without time. Indeed, I daresay that as long as there is life and motion, the presence of time is inevitable. One should not confuse himself by concluding that time is the cause of all life. This statement would be highly inaccurate and deeply flawed. On the contrary, one should view time and life as inseparable. One of the basic characteristic of living matter is motion. As long as there is motion, the object that is subject to movement must also be subjected to time. In other words, time is change as surely as change is time.

Our early ancestors would have most probably measured time with the rising and setting of the sun and the changing of seasons. Both of these natural situations would essentially be a measure of the interval taken for a cycle to complete. Humanity has since measured time using the same method all around the world. If you ever wondered why your clock is round, the answer is that the only way we know how to measure time is through the repetition of one event back to its original state.

In physics, time is considered one of the fundamental quantities that is used to generate other units. For some philosophers, time is one of the fundamental structures of the universe itself. While some people think time as an illusion, the truth is that as long as we choose to believe that we exist (a wise choice indeed), we are all subjected to time. Time waits for no man and is independent of the observer. How can time be an illusion when there is movement? Even if all life were to be extinct, the movement of any non-living matter would still prove the existence of time.

We normally think we know what is time. More often than not, we are wrong. Time as far as human beings can observe is unidirectional. It is in essence a continuous process from past to future that grows as it changes. One need not think too deep to prove the unidirectional flow of time. If time can move backwards, why is it we can remember the past but not the future? Similarly, if time is not unidirectional, we should be able to see broken cups recreating themselves into their original state. Even the movement of planets around the sun shows that time is unidirectional as they move not in all directions (a physical impossibility) but in a constant one-way direction.

Time is not universally the same for all individuals. It is an old myth that there is a universal quantity called time that all clocks measure. Absolute and universal time is an illusion! Instead, every separate individual has his own personal time that is independent to a certain extent from another individual. Einstein’s theory of relativity proves that  universal time is a lie because two accurately precise timepieces would show a difference in ‘time’ if one is stationary while the other is moving. Many experiments conducted on this subject have indeed proven the relativity of time.

Thus, the relativity of time simply shows that the measurement of time is relative to the observer. Fundamentally, the principle of time remains the same because no matter what difference is shown between two different time pieces, time is still a continuous movement from the past to the future. For our world, this fundamental principle of time is a priori, a truth that is independent of experience. In saying so, all our ancestors would be subjected to the same principle of time.

Of the Past and the Future

The connection of the past and the future is time. The fundamental difference is that the past is unalterable and set in stone while the future is usually seen as a variable that to some people seem random. The possibilities of total randomness is highly unlikely. I consider it logical to belief that even if we do not know what will happen, it does not mean that future events are totally random. My birth is certainly not random. This shows that the past defines who we are and set a scope in which the future is to unfold.

This is in line with the principle of causality to which every effect must have a cause. The cause of my existence in this world is because of my parents and the cause of their existence is because of their parents. To say that my birth is a random occurrence would be really ridiculous because everything that happens in the future is due to something that happened in the past. Without the seed, the plant would not exists. If the planting of the seed is not random, how can the existence of the plant be random? Randomness would then simply be an excuse when one cannot predict the future.

Similarly, the laws of physics can be applied as an action is always followed by a reaction. Without an action, the reaction would not happen and since an action in history is not random, the reaction must also not be random. The past is unchangeable unless the Creator should will it. The arrow of time would point in one direction as long as reality persist. If time was to flow backwards, all reality that we know would crumble and all life would cease to exist. The closest we can achieve in reversing time would be to rewind a recorded film and watch everything backwards. Memory, a tapestry woven by time however, cannot be rewinded so easily. Imagine remembering the future and not past memories!

Of Free-will and Fate

In establishing that the past and the future are not just random occurrences, one must question the validity of free-will and of fate. The concept of free-will in which every individual is free to choose is often a misleading philosophy. While I am an ardent supporter of human rights and the freedom of speech, I must admit that there are rather rigid limitations to free-will. First and foremost, we cannot choose who our parents are. Because of this, the immediate choice of what environment we are thrown into when we come into this world is also not for us to decide.

Second, to say that a child with down-syndrome has the freedom to choose to be a genius is an outright lie. Whether we like it or not, different people are born with different talents, competence, characteristics, physical appearances and mental faculties. In terms of these aspects, we almost never have a choice. While I admit that a person who learns music would become more and more proficient in playing a musical instrument, talent would ultimately be the determining factor of how far a person’s musical achievement can reach. Of all the numerous schools teaching music and students learning music, the number of famous composers and virtuosos, are limited to only a small number in comparison! This shows that both talent and training is needed to create a Mozart out of a man!

The third limitation of free will, is the necessity of choice. Whenever we reach a crossroad in our lives, we are force to choose where we want to go next. There is no escaping the necessity of choice. Even if an individual decides not to make a choice between two or more alternatives, this event itself is a choice. Since choosing not to choose is also a choice, one has no freedom in escaping this reality set by time. I consider it a great folly when one says that he has decided not to make anymore choices in his life. An absurd statement.

Even with its limitations, free-will to a small degree is available to us. Because we are all relative to time, we are unable to know the full consequences of our actions. When we look in retrospect, we should understand that things are fated to happen as the past is unalterable and out of the realm of choice and free-will. Events of the past has already happened and cannot happen in any other way. The future on the other hand, is only predictable to a certain extent and holds many possibilities. In relation to the future, free-will is present at a magnitude relative to the individual. As time passes and the ‘future’ is transformed into history, free-will concerning that event in the past disappears.

Of Illusion and Reality

Time defines almost every aspect of life. As long as we believe that we exist, time is present. How then do we know whether we exist when our senses usually mislead us on a daily basis? Sometimes we wake up in the morning not knowing whether we are still in a dream that might be as vivid as reality itself. While it is common to pinch ourselves to prove we are awake, one must admit that one can experience ‘pain’ even when one is dreaming. The lack of our senses as an absolute agent to sense reality would cause us to doubt on whether everything or anything is actually real.

The answer to this question is simple. Whether reality is an illusion is inconsequential. Even if everything we know, touch and see is a lie, we cannot choose do deny our own existence. If we decide to kill ourselves, we are acknowledging that there is something to be killed. Similarly, if we choose not to eat, hunger would inevitably cause great discomfort to our bodies and would serve as a reminder of the futility of denying our own existence. Our mind simply cannot handle the notion that we do not exist.

Even if we wake up to a different reality everyday, the laws of time would still hold. As long as we can see motion, we exist and thus a reality to which we reside in exists. The only way that our reality would crumble is that if everything become static and time stops to a halt. If there is no dynamic movement of any kind, even thought, reality would crumble indefinitely. Therefore, whether our reality is an illusion is really inconsequential because we cannot choose to deny our own existence as long as dynamic movement is possible.

The Time Machine

It is a common mistake to think that humanity can control time with a time machine. Being able to travel back and forth through time does not mean that one controls time. This is due to the fact that the ‘time’ taken to travel from either the past to future or future to past is also unidirectional even though the direction of time for the person in the time machine has changed. Furthermore, as one exits the time machine, he is subjected once again to the limitations of time and space. Even if a time machine becomes a reality one day, complete control of time would most probably be beyond the ability of mortals. With that being said, nobody knows what the future holds. Only ‘time’ can tell.