84°F, partly cloudy…

Occurences are a result of cause. This paper is the reason for much of my smiles. I tried, but upon publishing this paper I have finally flouted outrightly my most basic rule in maintaining this blog. But I do so in the name of Fernando, and Fernando alone.

84°F, partly cloudy… 

84°F, partly cloudy, wind speeds of 4 mph heading west, humidity of 64% might sound very much like weather report and you might even be right. But it also describes my life and the world that I come from. As uninteresting and mundane as the weather might sound, it is in the perspective that the two extremes of boredom and ecstasy depend on; even when it comes to observing the nimbostratus or cumulonimbus.  

Born in the bustling city of Mumbai, about 18 years ago, it wasn’t too late before I was gifted with the art of jaywalking, the knack of maneuvering the conniving markets and the rich flavour of the language of my motherland. From the beginning I was forced to realise that I had to grapple with a melting pot of two distinct cultures and three different languages. As a native South Indian, unlike my neighbourhood cricket buddies, I had to speak Tamil at home, and deftly switch to the ubiquitous Hindi upon closing my house door. Apart from the language, there existed a palpable dichotomy in almost everything: TV channels, food, behaviour the English accent and so forth. To exacerbate the problem, in school I had to speak in English with my teacher and friends, in which ironically I failed miserably. After nearly 7 years of the Indian monsoon and the sweet smell of North Indian auto rickshaw pollution, I migrated to what seemed to be the paradise of Singapore.  

In my new country there existed 3 different races of people, 4 different languages and another novel culture that I had to adapt to. After 6 years of primary school I had mastered the survival techniques in the Singaporean urban jungle, and of course their own brand of "Singlish". The next 4 years in secondary school that followed turned out to be by far the most important period of my life. I formed my principles, distinct style, ambitions and dreams as a teenager within the walls of St.Joseph's Institution, my Alma Mater.  

The changing phases of my lifestyle and the various cultures that I was exposed to, during my childhood, has played a significant role in shaping my aspiration. They have engendered a form of divine creativity which I use to formulate my future. Due to the valuable opportunities that Singapore presented me with, I was able to, of course improve my English to the extent that I am now able to mimic the CNN correspondents (and write brilliant essays), but more importantly travel to Cambridge and find my vocation in molecular biology. Like the impervious land that faces the brunt of the versatile weather, my environment and the experiences that it offered has been the primary factor that shapes my past, present and future.  

As a person of many cultures, I see myself as a citizen of the world. As a versatile character and creative thinker I can brazenly dream and desire my position amongst the best scientific persons of the world. To fulfill my desire I knock upon the door and await the answer at this precise moment as I type this essay. The weather is 84°F, partly cloudy, wind speeds of 4 mph heading west, humidity of 64%; as mundane as it may seem, blue skies or thunderstorm, the future remains to be soothsaid.

Of Kimi

28 March 09

The Joker’s Guide to Ruin the World (The Memoirs from the Otherworld)

I promise, for once, that this will not be long. I never actually find the time to write. And even when I do, it is not exceptional enough for me to publish it for the reading pleasure of more than one person. All the more, I never found the reason to write a memoir; probably afraid of the fact that there will be too few who bother reading it. To fully enjoy an artifact is a difficult thing. It becomes painful when few share your views, or rather when many prefer to not find time to examine your perspective. Such a memoir, I was afraid, would only add to the growing pile of my unread masterpieces. Yet, I try to push for such brilliance. The memoir: in the reminiscence of the time that I had once experienced - the time that I had once lived through - one of the first things that come to mind would be the purpose of my survival - the purpose of our society – the purpose of my living and in the most abstract sense the purpose of my cognition.

The philosophical discussion of living and of society might not be one which I might very readily get involved in. I am not a philosopher; rather I prefer to term myself as an observer – a human, who is an organism, one amongst the myriad of the other creations; who fortunately is able to articulate his thoughts in comprehensible form: in English. I am a mechanism amongst infinite others who make the great working machine of the universe - a small and insignificant part of the framework of nature. I make the machine be as what it is and I make it work. It is a rather gratifying assumption; yet it fails to answer the question, very often encompassed by a single, yet beautiful word: why? 

I have never killed; or rather, I try not to kill on purpose. The pain of death is such that one can enjoy it only once. And much of the time I try not to be the person delivering it. I prefer not to, yet prefer not to stop one from doing so too. I fend much criticism in expressing my views and to exhibit the way that I wish to think. I do not force my mind into anyone else; for if you encounter this memoir, it is indeed by your own wish and whim. I prefer not to overrate human life, like all of society. It might be phrased otherwise as the fallacy of underrating animal life. I like to see them all the same. But that serves to be but only one of the divides that I think about. The purpose of our cognition can only be understood if we oversee these divides from the perspective of nature. In the great organism, Homo sapiens, there are many perceptible divides, which I am lazy to name. Amongst these divides there is much tension, much violence and hatred. Let’s call this simply: fragmentation. The purpose of these divides remains a mystery and for long, I believe, it will remain so.  

Recounting the flaws and downfalls of the thought and actions of human nature, another failure that comes to mind is of religion and its part in fragmentation. Religion is the instrument that rids us of helplessness, or so it seems. With the various concepts and ideologies that show us paths towards what one might call “God”, religion has handicapped our perception of ourselves. In the pursuit of realizing ourselves, we might have lost sight of respecting the intelligence of a person of our own species, largely because we fail to understand that all religion is true and that all religions are just different paths to the same entity. 

“God isn’t small enough to fit into one religion”    

It is interesting how I find myself digressing from the actual intent of my memoir and more into the purpose of the being and cognition. I see myself recounting on my experience and my meditation on this very quest for purpose, not philosophically, but realistically. It is the confused search for a reason of this very fortunate sequence of events that has led to my and everyone of your existence. The reflection on this facility that we are born with does not belong to my memoir, because this thought by itself is a gift from the otherworld. 

This reason for my discussion is of an elusive nature and I often lose track of it even now as I choose words to finish this endeavor. Knowing that I am an insignificant yet indispensable part of this system that runs around me is vastly insufficient in the quest for the reason. It is frustrating to live in this quiz where we are the masters of creating and destroying life and matter; yet we are unable to control all of the system or any of the complex questions that it poses. In the 200,000 history of our species, we have come thus far in the development of our society. Yet, as it seems to me, we haven’t gotten any closer in discovering our purpose in this universe. Before I find any critics pointing out that some individuals might have acquired/trained the extraordinary talent to discover the purpose of their existence, not many societies have done so. Or to better phrase it, those societies that have done so have not been considered superior to the rest.

It seems that everyone has discovered that the health of our societal systems is degrading. Death and destruction seem to be more pervasive and prevalent in our world. You may wish to reason such an observation to the more powerful media that reports and to a large extent sensationalizes/exaggerates facts and a larger human population. Although this is an accusation on the perspective frame of the observer and a doubt on the observation; it cannot be seen as an actual reduction in the extent of violence in the world throughout the years. Also, a larger population and a more effective pervasion of ideologies is reason enough to ensure that the ideas that are spreading throughout humanity are novel and simple enough for people to comprehend and act accordingly. It may be obvious that the ideas that I talk of are analogous to religion and the concepts and morals that they preach.

Throughout the years, with the development of religion (and consecutively of morals), there has been an ironic escalation in the number of martyrs and destruction in defense of ideology. The more we grow, the more we seem to harm ourselves. So is moral growth beneficial at all? The problem of faith is that it is in every one of us and it is a part of who we are. Since it is so close to our hearts and is the framework of our principles, ideologies and morals- a challenge to our faith seems to be a challenge to the basis of our existence.

The only constant in this system is change. To evolve is the will of this system. It is a constant force that remains to be the impetus towards the perfection of our species. Challenges to ideologies must, thus, not be met with violence but with thought. When we understand that religion is not a natural phenomenon but a man-made creation that we tend to hold so close to our hearts, we will realise that it too is allowed to evolve for the better and cannot remain a fixed constant.

However, religion is but only part of the reason for fragmentation and cannot fully encompass the entire purpose of my memoir. But before I continue to explain the methods to solve fragmentation, it seems to be a pertinent necessity that I discuss the nature of fragmentation.

I have a queer ideology. I believe that the system is a manifestation of the ultimate form of perfection. We are the products of (or better yet, part of) such a system. To accuse ourselves of imperfection is to accuse our creators of their handiwork. (Please note that it would be helpful to understand “our system” and “our creators” as the sequence of events, in the neat framework of causality, that have brought about the occurrence of the universe that we call “now”. However, nearly any rational imagery that you may employ to the two terms will help in understanding the discussion.) Therefore, fragmentation, hate, crime or any other form of negativity that we experience cannot be seen as a deviation from perfection. It is the balance of the equilibrium. However, due to the nature of good being good and bad being bad, it only makes sense that we try to tend towards positivity. In fact it even seems that our facilities were possibly designed for “thought as an individual” and not for the comprehension of the entire system. Regardless of the drawbacks of our societal system we are to strive for survival as a species. Thus, even if my ideology be queer, it still is prudent to solve fragmentation and not confuse ourselves with the issues of providence.   

The more tangible yet necessary form of fragmentation that can defeat the purpose of the “survival as a species” hypothesis is race and nationalism. The only reason that such fragmentation seems necessary today is because it is so deeply woven into our way of thought that we cannot accept that an Indian, Spaniard, Chinese, French, American and Somalian be our people all at the same time. So it seems that a certain form of violence derived from competition is inherent to our species. Humans are indeed a destructive species; but the damage that we induce is ironically self-inducing. The characteristic that makes us an entity, defeats the purpose of our maturity. But is it possible to live as a single human species, as one country, as one united people? Possibly we started out living in small clans and throughout the centuries have evolved to form the biggest of clans called countries or more recently, economic unions. The problem with fragmentation is not the divides but the consequence of the divides. Competition between “clans” can lead to hatred, distrust, violence and war.

The reasons of developing armies are beyond the purpose of defence. Regardless of the size or the significance of a nation, the development of its fighting capabilities (army, navy, air force etc) always will have a more furtive purpose. When a nation is attacked, to fight in the name of defence is inconsequential. The reason of attack is of most consequence. The only reason I accuse all nations of a shady defence aim and capability is because of the utopian proposition. If all nations were to unanimously cease productions of weapons and armaments and discard all that have thus far been produced; a possible divine peace will ensue and of course if all humans were to unite as one nation, we might find fewer reasons to fight over.

That brings us to the question of violence within nations. Even though I can quote examples almost immediately at the mentioning of ‘violence within nations’ I purposely avert them to maintain objectivity and due to the risk of ignorance of the intricate issues involved. This paper understands that the blaming ourselves for the accentuation of races is of a controversial matter. However, fragmentation brings about discord between peoples due to the perspective of races having the quality of being superior to one another. Issues of racism arise only because of this perspective and assuming that humans are of such a nature of alienating entities different from those that they identify themselves a part of, we can only accuse the development of races for fragmentation.

Assuming that the forces that shape humanity are entirely natural and come from within the human psyche we can understand that our society is subject to a constant flux. Our attitudes and principles are constantly changing, possibly due to the nature of each new generation consisting of radically different individuals who feel it necessary to not follow their predecessors. Thus, we finally arrive at the only solution to fragmentation: globalisation. Globalisation in its literal sense is the process of transformation of local or regional phenomena into global ones. It can be described as a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and function together. In the most utopian sense, globalisation seems to at least quell the violent nationalist pride that divides countries. The most optimistic projections might foretell a world comprising a single nation and the destruction of fragmentation.  

Globalisation, however, is still false universalism. If fragmentation has finally died, I wouldn’t be writing this paper at all. Globalisation might finally kill part of fragmentation, but not yet. Even if this magic tool, the product of high-tech innovation, works its miracles in the way that it destroys national boundaries, it cannot promise to remove racial divides. Because of the illusion of superiority mentioned afore alone, the “survival purpose” will require us to destroy the concept of race eventually; for the sake of peace and rudimentary survival.  

The journey has been an enchanting one, for the writer in particular, and I am sure not as much for the reader. It is not that I have little faith in my prowess with words, but I understand that the inertia that our environment has forced unto our throats will preserve fragmentation. It will live on for a while longer. The path of ultimate love for everyone and everything- of the system and of the ultimate creator- must remain a utopian dream for now and for a few more days to come.  

Revolution is a difficult thing. Ironically, even if change were to be the constant of the system, revolution is of a league its own. To take a system to its very brink and to push its head forcefully over the cliff and frighten it witless from the perilous drop and to coax it violently back from that brink is the method of revolution. And I, honestly (and realistically), don’t believe that this is something that I can imagine humanity to encounter anytime soon. But only at the brink, at the very precipice, will we change. This paper will not be, and was never intended to be, the spark that destroys fragmentation and brings about an eternal love in the heart of humanity- but that would be a nice thought. No?  

I am known for my uncanny ability to keep promises. That is to promise to keep promises and to sometimes break them unknowingly and to still say that I kept them and work my way out of the mess through wordplay.  

In the vastness of eternity and the greatness of the very fabric that ties every entity that has been brought into creation: love; this memoir of purpose (of humanity) is but a pathetic infinitesimally tiny attempt to force a plausible opinion. So tell me now, as promised, is it really that long?  

Of Kimi

27 Mar 09

I wish to credit Enlin Lynne for inspiring the idea of “Globalisation being another false universalism.”  

The Pleasure in Plagiarism

You can only get caught for plagiarism when people find the original piece of work; until then you are the genius.

-Kimi

It is somewhat an ironic form of gratification that the impetus to me writing again is an accusation of plagiarism by an anonymous comment on the tagboard which I created with the intent of appreciation. At least I know that someone is running through the posts that were meant for little more than the value of relics.

It so happens that I might be, interestingly, a very likely candidate for plagiarising items. There are many things that I wish I have done and it so happens that I wish I had written much of Stapledon and Dawkins. I find it a method to appreciate their work in what you might call an estranged and rather irritating way.

I write on plagiarism because of my fascination on the subject and my perspective of it being synonymous to inspiration. To plagiarise is to steal from the original author and claim that item to be your own. What makes the phenomenon interesting is it being a method used to steal credit and praise which does not belong. However, the controversy that I wish to so desperately introduce involves confusing plagiarism with inspiration.

For very long, I have pondered on the logic of free libraries. To read, I believe is the ultimate form of plagiarism. Through the acquisition of knowledge from a book, I am allowed to use the knowledge in the form of application without acknowledging the author or publisher. Better yet, I am even allowed to interpret more than what author means from his book; in other words using content from the book as substrate to build wisdom that which it is not designed to provide. And in this form of application or extrapolation I am allowed to write something new altogether. What other worse method can there be to steal than to obtain them free altogether from a library?

It is difficult, however, to express my surprise with the criminal dualism of libraries without which I myself would not be able to fully express this thought in a clear and concise manner. The dualism is such that firstly it lends books for free which one might have been forced to purchase if he had not read it without cost. It seems obvious, surprisingly to me alone, that authors are losing revenue because public libraries lend the books for free without paying the publishers. Secondly, and more importantly, the rudimentary reading of books by itself is a form of plagiarism as expressed earlier. To perform such a crime for free seems only that it be actually encouraged in a crooked form. It is only for the sake of an argument and a different perspective that I point out the “crime” in free lending and (the sillier) reading of books. I most certainly bask in this costless pleasure, and it is only with the confidence that the introduction of such a perspective will have no impact on the existence of libraries and books that I dare write such an outrageous paper.

Nearly all authors that we read from are liable to plagiarism. In fact if the dictionaries were to lay claim to the words that are in them, almost all forms of writing would be in some way be an offence of plagiarism. I cannot however, explain the reasons of putting up excellent excerpts from my favourite books, without the risk of sounding defensive. Apart from the fact of wishing that I had written the excerpts that I have however acknowledged to the authors that they belong to (and thus am not liable to plagiarism), I put them up for the reason of sharing its brilliance with my audience and because of their relevance to the creation of this blog: To examine the nature of life and of cognition.

It is not my purpose to justify such a crime of stealing praise. However I wish to point out that without a certain degree of plagiarism and inspiration it would be impossible to produce brilliance. In my case, to create the brilliance of “On Purpose” I cannot do it alone but have to find help from the authors that I hold so close and dear.

I have for many times considered plagiarising work for the sake of praise but I understand that the nature of “On Purpose” (I state again) is not for the benefit of my audience but for the value of it being a relic of my profound intellect. I gain little from plagiarising, but nevertheless find a certain degree of joy today with the understanding that there are people finding my endeavour useful.

It is only with the words of Newton that I mustered courage to write such an outrageous essay on partially justifying this crime. Without his greatness much of what we see today would not exist. Although I do realise that such statements nearly always remain relegated to the realms of stupidity because if not for Newton there might have been a George or Alicia who might have completed what he had done if not having reproduced his exact brilliance. Whatever the case may be, the greatness of Newton was only made possible because of his predecessors. Thus George or Alicia or Newton together with the other great technological magic that we witness today will no longer exist if not for their inspiration and derivation from the work of predecessors. After all, even you and I are today comfortably couched on the broad shoulders of giants.

Of Kimi
24 Mar 09

Epilogue
I together with all of my sane audience find it comical to add an epilogue to such a silly and short piece of writing. However, I am forced to do so because of the risk of future accusation of plagiarism.

Please note that I will hereby acknowledge the work of all authors who have contributed to my upcoming posts. This will include me, Kimi, too; that being the reason why I have signed of as “Of Kimi” at the end of this piece of work. I can only beg for your confidence to trust that such a method will avoid for future confusion. I apologise for any doubt that I may have so caused by quoting works such as “The Anaesthetic of Familiarity”.

Also I will like to especially apologise to the special people who have expected me to write an intellectually engaging artwork as promised for tonight’s selection. Unfortunately the essay “Memoirs from the Otherworld” is yet not complete and it begs more time for attaining the author’s satisfaction. I will greatly appreciate anyone who will comment on any of my articles and reward them; like now: I dedicate this essay to the anonymous person who pointed out that I be using the work of geniuses. Thank you.

In Gratitude!

Outcome is the result of actions and thought. I have always wanted to show my gratitude to so many people for what they have done to me, and there cannot be a better time than now, the third greatest day of my life! Please note that this list is non-exhaustible, and that if I missed you out, please point it out and I will make sure I add you. Everyone in this list is extremely special, and given a chance I will give my warmest hug to each one of you to show you my gratitude. Once again, thank you very much! I will be most obliged if you were to read and comment on this post.

Fernando Alonso, A.R. Rahman, Sara Tariq, Hulya Kara, Ying Hui, Terence Soon, Srinath, Heiko Zeibell, Saroj, Divya, Han Jia Jin, Leonard Yong, David Ang, Marcus, Nelson, Sky Koh, Soh Ming Quan, XL, Simin, Foong Yi Chao, Bong Tingli, Tay Geng Yu, Alex, Jing Ming Xue, Huang Jia Xi, Serene, Mirabel, Jay Fong, Feng, Tan Ying Te, Ravi, Arvind Rajagopalan, Govind, Glenn, Walter, Ong Eng Teck, Terence Koh, Mrs. Elaine Toh, Mrs. Yeo Yew Tin, Ms. Lee Lih Sin, Mrs. Lee (Math), Miss Lee Siew Lian, Mr. Eric Lam, Mr. Lim Meng Chye, Ms. Deborah Goh, Mrs. Tan Lai Kuen, Mr. Tung, Mr. Chen Ling Kwang, Mr. Brian Lagman, Mr. Jared Lee, Carlos Mejuto, Mythreyi, Natasha Dalmia, Darryl Boey, Stephen Khoon, Brian Ho, Mrs. Ellen Woo, Mr. Raymond Wong, Cheng Feng, Xiao Fan, Yang Jun, Aurilea, Valencia, Akshay Ashok, Wilson, James, Jason Sin, Ben Lee, Rayner, Alvin, Elycia, Eric Wang, Farina, Yue Zhen, Michelle, Marium, Rayshio, Hsuan Te, Zaw, Wee Jin, Samuel Tee, Augustine Chay, Aravind, Charlene, Joel Lee, Alex Jafarzadeh, Damian Boh, Siddharth Sriram, Chinmaya Joshi, Keyboard Teacher, Nick, Swoosh, Giancarlo Fisichella, Nico Rosberg, Richard Proctor, Jonathan Yarden, Paula Malai, Steve Dawson, Jing Ping, Adam, Grant Imahara, Lex Lazatin, Ivan Tsoi, David Kang, Jamie Oliver, Donovan, Darren Khee, Priscilla Cheong, Zhao Dong, Nick Haushofer, Louis, Tuck Heng, Victor Goh, Han Jia Ying, Haresh, Roger Poulier, Justin Neo, Verrel Tan, Tian Tian Zhou, Wu Yang, Chris Wymant, Hu Ching, Feng Yi Fei, Jayanth, Bernie Ecclestone, Reinhold Messner, Dip Chandra Kalika, Raju, Coldplay, The Beatles, Barack Obama, P.Chidambaram, Dr. L. Subramaniam, God, people of my blood and all the other people whom I will add as soon as I remember that I have forgotten to add your name.

I have made an effort to make this list as short as possible and to group as many people together where applicable (like Coldplay and The Beatles). Also the list is in a random order, with of course the first few being the people who come to my mind most immediately and thus the very very special. I repeat: if you are reading this you have impacted my life enough to enter my list. Thank you so very much!

Objectivity

The nature of this blog differs from others in the fact that it was never about the actions of the creator but more about his views and opinion on a particular subject. In doing so, I have been careful to avoid, as much as possible, using the possesive pronouns such as I and us.


However, such a level of objectivity, so it seems, constricts thought and expressiveness. It is becoming increasingly difficult to speak about distinct experiences and opinions. Almost always such a discussion deserves to begin with the self, because the perception of this universe begins from the self. Any observation that I make and the consequent opinion that I create can best be expressed without diluting what I mean when recounted in the first person.


If at all anyone reads this and the other posts that have been written with a certain measure of objectivity and feels that the following posts lack in any way please do leave a comment and I will try my best to satisfy your request. Also note that I can so brazenly put forth such a proposition because of my faith in the lack of people reading my posts.


Despite my attempt to simplify my language and widen my audience, I want to make it known that the blog is more for my future recollection of thoughts than for the reading pleasure of the people who make the number on the right side tick. If you really don't like what I write, please do let me know, but also note that I am not writing for you. That still doesn't mean that I will not change something for your comment. Yes, I know, this last paragraphs confuses me too, but it is true.