People

December 25th, 2007 by adriantan-85

I’m not a good person.
Neither am I a bad person.

I do not judge myself as someone who has fulfilled the requirements of morality. Neither am I a person who should be at any point vilified for some of the actions I may have chosen to take.

In other words, I’m not good, nor am I bad.

It takes a lot of a person to judge someone who is either one of those things. It takes a lot of character, a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge (not necessarily bookish-intelligence) and a lot of humanity to be able to judge.

Personally, people from all walks of life are equally different from one another… you can taunt me later about "’Equally Different’ is an oxymoron you nim-wit!"
More importantly, that fact is enough to show to us that we are not the same in terms of morality, personality, beliefs, or even taste.

It’s just different.

… I know, the word ’standard’ seems to be popping in your head a lot eh?

The thing here is, a lot of principles, arguments, guidelines, and even laws have been propagated again and again. Deemed to be ’standard’ or ‘universal’ and hereby ruling all sentients. The universal morality - accepted by all walks of life; unquestioned, accepted, and always being used as a guide-lining principle.

But I still fail to embrace that.

I still do not believe that you have the same standard principles as I do. Including very fundamental believes albeit life, death, creation, crime, punishment, and anarchism. Truthfully, if you ask enough questions, you’d realise that these fundamental values break into smaller fragments that in the end are the core values that differ from one person to another. Here’s an example:

"I believe in equal punishment to the crime committed. No more, no less."
—> following up this statement would be a string of questions to reemphasise or contradict this principle. From simpler, to more intrinsic details of the questions’ answers…
Do you think that a person who steals should pay back? Yes? No?
If paid back, is the robber free to go? Should he pay extra for punishment? Is paying back equivalent to punishment or is it just compensation to the worthy-for-compensation victim?
Do you think that a first time robber should be given a lenient sentence compared to a repeated offender? Yes? No?
If yes, then should that same principle apply for a person who has raped or murdered? Yes? No?
Do you believe that a life should be taken for a life? Yes? No?
Do you believe that a person who has raped should receive a similar experience? Yes? No? Then how would you ensure that the punishment is equivalent to the crime he committed? Does the punishment change according to how he did it? Does it change according to how well his behaviour was in jail?

… my questions have not finished but my guess is your principles have swayed from one far end to another just within that 1:43 minutes.

Can you ever get ONE principle that stands all these intrinsic questioning and scrutiny?

NO.

Therefore, we are all different.

We are therefore….

…. people.

Hotel Rwanda

December 18th, 2007 by adriantan-85

Ok.

This was bad… watching the movie was daunting.

Yeah…. daunting

Because at the end, I had a lot of questions in my head (still have). We need an answer pronto…

No one knows why genocide happens.
No one knows why people hate each other just because they’re different.

Rather vague eh? I’ll give you a description from the movie…
Here’s how one scene went on…

"…. a Hutu rebel didn’t know how to identify the Hutus from the Tutsies. They all looked alike from where he was standing. But he was so determined to kill all the Tutsi ‘cockroaches’ (as they were referring to) and demanded each of them to disclose their names… those with a Tutsi name would be then hacked by a machete. What was worse, he was SO CERTAIN to kill ONCE he found out the person’s identity. Disregarding everything else…."

… okay, I’m not in a position to say I understand these things, but a person who really goes all out to erase a certain group of people (whether it be race, gender, etc) must really hold some serious grudges albeit family got massacred or something similarly traumatising.

Let’s all ask ourselves a question here, why would you hate a group of people, disregarding everything else, to the extent of taking a LIFE away? Be it children, women, or unarmed non-militia civilians? Just because they were born to be in that category of people? That’s heavy….

… really. Up till now I still have not managed to grasp the reasoning behind it. Let’s delve deeper…

We can ask a broader question by asking,
"How was the global political communities’ reaction?"

I have the perfect sentence to exemplify that. Quoted from the movie:

        "They look at the footage, they go ‘God! That is inhumane!’… and they go on with their dinner and wine,"

If THAT can be the reaction of another person not involved in that civil war, how do you think the mentality of the enraged parties are like?

My logical deduction tells me it’s a hundred times more gruesome.

I tried to understand from all the reading, all the watching, pictures, footages, but right up till now, the only reason I can tell you how these people are feeling that sort of way…

… is because they REFUSE to be told otherwise. It has become a diabolical-attachment in their being, their self-taught morality, their experiential-actions thus causing the entire embodiment of their character to REFUSE. The word we’re going to focus here today,

… is REFUSAL.

There is not ONE reason why proper education, upbringing, and influence by the global community are not reaching out to these people. These people ARE the ones with the assets and the channels to hear the global communities’ cries. They know that we try our best to propagate the best of solutions (not necessarily to halt it just like that), but to slowly listen and learn about how certain repercussions happen due to their inappropriate actions.

Sorry… on a personal note, replace inappropriate with inhumane, and repercussions with atrocities.

It is REFUSAL. It is the mind of a human being who is STUBBORN, EGOISTIC, and ADULTLY that causes the mind to not learn how to rationalise,

… and ACCEPT.

Look around you, you don’t have to go too far away… you don’t have to watch ‘Hotel Rwanda’ to see that a lot of people are JUST NOT willing to accept, listen, and negotiate.

THEY HATE.
THEY’LL ONLY SEE HATE.
THEY REFUSE.
THEY’LL ONLY REFUSE.

… and to REFUSE is the excuse of the INSANE mind.

SPEAK UP! WHAT’S WRONG WITH THAT?!

December 15th, 2007 by adriantan-85

 I just wanna say that at the end of the day,

… you HAVE to question!

Question EVERYTHING!

Nothing that is going around you is SUPPOSED to be like that.
Nothing in this world should be avoided from ‘Coffee With Karan’-esque machine-gun questioning.

To tell you the truth, in Malaysia especially, we have been reduced to the point where we give up hope in questioning. We forget that the basic need for a human being to survive is when curiosity is satisfied. We even lose out the skill and the ability to perform simple questioning because the nature of us has been changed to that of:
1) acceptance
2) unwillingness to find out more
3) illiberal in thought and culture
4) fear

… it’s true. We’re all scared. So scared that we dare not say anything that might spark up ‘hate’, ‘controversy’, ‘change’.

When in fact, these things are a MUST have in life. Life is about having peace and glory - true. Life is also about the chaos and the uproar of questioning, demanding, and many other negativities that should happen in life.

We aren’t naive to think that in our world today, PEACE, TRANQUILITY, TOLERANCE will be trumped just by questioning, demanding, and being free-spirited about your principles. Someday, whether we like it or not, there will be a time when there will be unrest. There will be a time where people will be unhappy. There will be a time when we try our very best to satisfy EVERYBODY but end up SPECIFICALLY hurting a small number of people - which up to this date is inevitable.

DO NOT TRY TO THINK THAT THIS MUST NOT HAPPEN!
DO NOT TRY TO THINK THAT WHEN IT HAPPENS, ALL HELL BREAKS LOSE!
DO NOT THINKKKKKK THAT WHEN IT DOES HAPPEN, WE’RE NOT AWARE OF IT’S SETBACKS AND TRY TO REDUCE IT.

We’re all human beings. We don’t want to destroy everything - that’s just nonsense. But on the way of achieving more peace, the road is filled with bumps and portholes that we will bravely endure with a good heart, just hands, and…

… less DRASTIC words.

Well, if you don’t know me… well… you wouldn’t know me then

December 14th, 2007 by adriantan-85

I know what you’re thinking.

This dude really is a giant loser. Posting twice on the same day? He doesn’t know anything about how this thing works aye?

Well guess what? I DON’T! BITE MY… well, just bite me tenderly…

Anyway, *breathe in an fix into a yoga position*  the things that I write about ain’t nothing to do about my daily routines, nothing about how my day went and all that crap. It’s about ME!

Not me as in like "What’s Adrian’s Schedule like?"
More of like "What’s in his grey matter?"

I’ve been thinking (help me if you will), that when you have people that go,
"I’m a vegetarian. I’m not going to eat animals. It’s a life’s choice, principle. I have affinity, pity, passion for animals."

… it makes you wonder isn’t it?

First things first, it’s all fine and dandy, really… cause they say that animals are living things… they have all the right to be here and we are not bigger or mightier or powerful than they are. Therefore we should respect them as living beings and not eat them.

… well, first of all, I wonder if lions feel the same way.

BUT!

… I was not heading for that direction.

… I was wondering more of like: since we have people who pity these animals, have natural affinity towards these animals, are passionate about not harming these animals hence - vegetarians, vegans.

Do we have animalarians? animans? (people that abstain from eating plants and eat only meat)

You know, the flip side of things. They have pity towards plants. They have a natural affinity towards fauna, are passionate about not harming these plants hence - animalarians, animans.

It wouldn’t be too far-fetched eh?

Why blog when you can rant about it in real life?

December 14th, 2007 by adriantan-85

Lets face it… I never agreed to the whole ‘blogging’ term. Even the name of it sounds funny… Imagine people going around saying, "Hey, you read that blog?", "Wanna see my blog?", "Your blog was great!"….

… ‘blog’? Sounds like when you drop your RM2.50 Cornetto Ice Cream on the cement floor…

Really, would anyone (especially those quiet-silent-i-don’t-wanna-socialise kind of people) wanna spill EVERYTHING about themselves online? Where a kajillion people can access and criticise? Everything ever exposed online, typed out, edited is a well-planned-thought-for-a-long-time effort that is for sheer amusement for him/her own personal self or for you reading right now.

That’s RIGHT!

I realised that ‘blogging’ is just another way of ranting out things you would never say in real life. Things like:
1) "I love how chocolate cakes look like doodie!"
2) "Isn’t flatulence refreshing?"
3) "I’d marry myself if it was legally possible!"

… or some other thing similar to that, you get my point…

But you can’t hide the fact that hitting the keyboard can actually be very therapeutic… really.

Anyway…

The reason why I started to type things out online is that talking is just NOT ENOUGH!

I SAID IT!

Talking on a regular basis, everyday, and all the time even when I don’t need to talk is just not enough. Verbal words should not be the only way to express my lunacy. Making sounds from my vocal chords is not the only way I can irritate others.

… I can make people read about it!!
… and I realised who these people are… check out my list down here!

People who want to read your blogs:
1. They don’t think talking to you is enough.
2. They have no cellphones to communicate with you.
3. They think the word ‘blog’ is just too cool and to not be associated with it is crime.
4. Add the suffix ‘-ing’ and they spin out of control. What more ‘-ger’
5. Watching a person divulge information online is the WORLDS BEST WAY TO GOSSIP ANONYMOUSLY.
6. They are physically inappropriate to be in a good healthy communicative relationship with you (think anthrax).
7. They are blog-worms (think bookworms).
8. Nothing is good on TV, all their friends are not around, and they need a hug.
9. Everybody else is doing it.
10. They love writing diaries but they hate it that diaries carry a ‘NO ONE CAN READ IT!’ connotation.

… but if you don’t fall into those categories, don’t panic.

… things take time. Oh yeah… it does.*add cynical laughter i.e. witch from Sleeping Beauty.