I believe...


... that people are paramount


... and Hume was right on passions


... that Marx was right on wrongs


... but my friends are the ones worth fighting for.

Mooncakes

I adore breakfast cereals with almonds, corn flakes and vanilla flavoured items. It's a wholesome way to start a day - cereal, milk, and a short aerobic ride to school to wake me up. It's Saturday today. Time to get another box of cereal from the local supermarket, Coles. And since I'm in the city, I might as well get my favourite French pastry - the croissant. Ok, maybe a few croissants.

Then I saw the mooncakes on display. I remember how much I loved them. I remember how hard it was to find them here, a rare treat, a familiar icon absent, just like how the nasi lemak here isn't served with ikan kuning, or the chicken rice with tangy chili, or the absence of barbecued sambal stingray. Yes, this isn't home, and the mooncake reminds me of that. It reminds me of all of that. How fitting - the history of the mooncake includes an episode where secret messages were put inside it.

The Principle of Accessibility activates a network of concurrent networks associated with food, and with food comes home, and with home comes... my friends. Yes, I miss my friends the most. The impossibility of a quick phone call to arrange a reunion or coffee session after a movie leaves a sense of tangible absence. Not quite a sense of loss, but pretty close. I wanted to write this before I got on with my day. I felt that it was important, something I shouldn't just forget. Something fundamental to my sense of self and identity. To my personal identity, defined by my personal attributes and close relationships, as professor Yoshi defined in this week's lectures.

Many years ago, before I realised the arbitrary norm established between race and culture, I sought to be more 'Chinese'. Today, I tread the line between the eclectic and esoteric. But I still remember this poem from long before. I've just figured out how its odd lines rhyme to present the association of thought, snow and home while the last characters of the even lines reiterate the motif of the moon. The pensive mood of the poem is also enhanced by the first characters of the first and last lines, standing for 'quiet' and 'bowed' respectively. It has, in other words, a structural harmony. The skills I've picked up studying English literature seem to apply here too. Perhaps poetry is a universal human expression...

靜夜思

床前明月光

疑是地上霜

舉头望明月月

低头思故鄕

I've just figured out how its odd lines rhyme to present the association of thought, snow and home while the last characters of the even lines reiterate the motif of the moon. The pensive mood of the poem is also enhanced by the first characters of the first and last lines, standing for 'quiet' and 'bowed' respectively. It has, in other words, a structural harmony. The skills I've picked up studying English literature seem to apply here too. Perhaps poetry is a universal form of human expression...

A New Chapter

I've matriculated at the University of Melbourne for a Bachelor of Arts course, majoring in psychology. Time is scant and I don't think I have the time to write on topics chosen at my leisure.

The silver lining is the relevance of my subjects to this blog, Deconstruction, which will now host my better essays. I will only upload essays of a decent grade.

Subsequent entries may touch on anthropology, psychology and/or globalisation. Yes, those are the subjects I'm enrolled in for my first semester. My 4th subject is in an irrelevant area (and I'm wondering why I took up such a dull one).

The occasional entry on Marxism or socialism may also appear if my new social network proves fruitful in this regard.

Check back every now and then :)

Cultural Revolutions?

Mao Zedong is know for many things, one of which is the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-68). Old ideas, dissidents and other 'reactionary' elements were eradicated.

But Mao's not the first. Qin Shi Huang, the 1st Emperor of China, carried out a similar campaign of book-burning... and scholar-burning at the advice of prime minister Li Si. Like Mao, it was also intended to secure the nascent political order against ideological threats.

Both were allegedly paranoid about keeping their hold on power, the threat of treacherous ministers, and the fear of losing public support.

R.G. Collingwood once said "The history of the word is the history of great men". We should bring psychology onto the political stage.

Solitary Terror?

Who knows what true loneliness is—not the conventional word, but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion. Now and then a fatal conjunction of events may lift the veil for an instant. For an instant only. No human being could bear a steady view of moral solitude without going mad.

- Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)

I know too little and talk too much. Perhaps I tried to make up for it. I'll leave the complex arguments for the intellectuals who know better. In the meantime, some thoughts:

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same kind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.

- George Eliot (1819-1880)

There may be no universal values, perhaps there never were.

But we have Our values, the ones we share with friends and loves.

I live by those values.

- Me (1989 - the next suicide attempt)

God vs Nietzsche

Nietzsche: "God is dead!"

God: "Nietzsche is dead!"

- By Sandeep on MSN