how to be an intellect101
as pompous and condescending as this may seem; preaching on how to be an intellect (or extreme egomaniac), as you read on, this is going to be a down to earth, honest to god, 脚踏实地 post.
what you need to do is actually very simple. everything that has been taught to you, your beliefs, your conceptions, your paradigm, your entire spectrum of what you perceive things to be; throw it out the window. i repeat, throw it out the window.
in the words of that ugly (supposedly fat and short too) greek philosopher; One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing. strip away your pride and your ego. you are that smudge on that skyscraper, the flotsam drifting out to sea, the full stop at the end of a sentence. in short you are nothing. its humbling, yes i know but it needs to be done. you have to begin on a clean slate of mind and start to question everything and anything. only then will you realise that you actually know nothing.
the education in singapore is such that in my 20 years of education, not once have i been told to question the validity of the facts that is presented to me (on a silver platter no less) in any form or notion. we are told to accept the conceived notions of what is an primordial right and wrong. only in such a setting can a civilised (as we know it) society exist. only in such a setting can trade and commerce occur. only in such a setting can the rich screw the poor over and over until he's out of K-Y jelly. and hell, it works. like an effective, well-oiled clockwork, singapore if registered as a public company would make the fortune 500 most valuable companies. hell, it'll top microsoft and all. the undisputed king of kings, the gem in the ocean, the big fuckin' swinging dick, master of the universe. (LKY: ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hubris) .
we have become a prisoner in our own mind. and not just us singaporeans, us civilisation as a whole, we are entrapped in what society has dictated. now im not talking 1984, brave new world dystopia kinda stuff, its just we have to open our mind and stop being so narrow minded.
so think about it. there are no absolutes in this world. no one super string theorem to rationalise the very fundemental being of our existence; simply because there is no basis of comparison. (that is until we make contact.)
so am i an intellect you ask? well i don't know, because i know for a fact, i know nothing at all. :)
what you need to do is actually very simple. everything that has been taught to you, your beliefs, your conceptions, your paradigm, your entire spectrum of what you perceive things to be; throw it out the window. i repeat, throw it out the window.
in the words of that ugly (supposedly fat and short too) greek philosopher; One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing. strip away your pride and your ego. you are that smudge on that skyscraper, the flotsam drifting out to sea, the full stop at the end of a sentence. in short you are nothing. its humbling, yes i know but it needs to be done. you have to begin on a clean slate of mind and start to question everything and anything. only then will you realise that you actually know nothing.
the education in singapore is such that in my 20 years of education, not once have i been told to question the validity of the facts that is presented to me (on a silver platter no less) in any form or notion. we are told to accept the conceived notions of what is an primordial right and wrong. only in such a setting can a civilised (as we know it) society exist. only in such a setting can trade and commerce occur. only in such a setting can the rich screw the poor over and over until he's out of K-Y jelly. and hell, it works. like an effective, well-oiled clockwork, singapore if registered as a public company would make the fortune 500 most valuable companies. hell, it'll top microsoft and all. the undisputed king of kings, the gem in the ocean, the big fuckin' swinging dick, master of the universe. (LKY: ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hubris) .
we have become a prisoner in our own mind. and not just us singaporeans, us civilisation as a whole, we are entrapped in what society has dictated. now im not talking 1984, brave new world dystopia kinda stuff, its just we have to open our mind and stop being so narrow minded.
so think about it. there are no absolutes in this world. no one super string theorem to rationalise the very fundemental being of our existence; simply because there is no basis of comparison. (that is until we make contact.)
so am i an intellect you ask? well i don't know, because i know for a fact, i know nothing at all. :)
posted by nai at 11:36 AM
2 Comments:
this is too heavy and i am still having my morning coffee. but to start 'anew' is always a good start. to start as naked as adam and eve, to start when plato still had the leisure to sit around and talk about friendship etc, the world then just wasn't too late. i think what you meant by intellect (the wisdom you are sharing) is just someone who has the conciousness of human rights, of the abuse of conventionality, of free speech, and not in the sense that he can for example quote proust at the click of the fingers, or is able to explain to you why hemingway dislikes doctoevsky because he overshadows him. but to become this kind of intellect (the latter), being concious of the fact that the 'truth' should be hunted down and not be ordered from a menu isn't neccessarily enough. it's like darwin's theory of natural selection. ppl like you, yes i mean you, nai, being born in a country where there is hardly anything to worry about, it is your environment, your influences and most importantly, the little glowing light in your heart (yes heart, not head) moulded you to become what you are today (this is not a praise, an observation, but you are welcome) that one realises, upon 5 minutes of talking to you that either one has to handle you differently, or can't handle you at all, (i'm sure you know what i mean) the one talking to you, can't just convince you by telling you in your face that everything should be done like this or like that because you are, like what e.m. forster mentioned in his 'aspects of the novel', the intelligent reader, the one who asks "why?" after a sentence, a paragraph, and not "what?". the other possible initiation/reason is perhaps genes, or even extreme circumstances in the family, to find in an average person those is far from difficult. and the light in the heart, i don't know if you can light it yourself. you are in a house on top of the hill man. and i appreciate it that you somehow, maybe not directy descending the hill to look at the world around you but at least you saw something, and went back to the top of the hill to preach. it's a difficult job, because to tell someone that things are wrong when they eat well and play well seems just absurb to them. talk about the education is singapore, i would describe it as "tyrannical", "saddam-hussein-like", "pacifying". but there's no one to blame really isn't it, because i believe the teachers themselves, they sincerely and genuinely believe that by doing what is done to them, you won't have to worry about the days when your retirement draws near, like death. because when you threaten them with things that you can just 'take away' from them, they will just give up to save their wide-screen tvs. to realise that they are just taking your burdens away from you is a step to nirvana, a step not many can take in this world of "mis-beliefs" (in a religious sense).
i totally agree with you though. the first step is to erase all the "official truth", or even the "common truth" or no truth and proceed from there. it is very difficult, and one 'why' multiplies itself into more 'whys' (if there is a will or interest to ask that in the first place), its like theres no end, but it is in this process of bacteria-like multiplication that you become wiser, i think and very confused, of course, there are always side-effects . i like what james nachtway (a photogtapher/journalist) said once about current issues/ news, "believe only 50% of it and use this 50% as a basis to find the truth". ok, james only said 'believe on half what the reporters tell you' and i added the latter part, but i think it works. or does it? cos i know nothing.
i welcome you onto my sinking ark nai, but we might never see a rainbow after the rain.
you're right in the sense that i meant intelligence to be. perhaps intelligence is better substituted by conventional wisdom. or common sense. but see this is what i meant by i know nothing at all. 95% of people who talk to me, they will be thinking: holy shit nai knows his stuff in literature and all those artsy fartsy shit. fucking A man. you have completely exposed me in this 20 minutes post. i resent the fact that i did not take literature at a higher level so as to engage you on the topics fore mentioned by you. there is this saying in the banking industry ' you gotta bluff it until you know it '. and quite honestly, im sick and tired of people getting wow-ed by my bullshit all the time. i need people to fucking expose me for the lit. fraud that i am. but having said that, check out albert camus's the plague if you really liked james joyce that much (such a hard read). as to the the rainbow at the end of the rain, perhaps we were never meant to see and question the existence of the rainbow in the first place. mankind has not ascended to that level of wisdom to fully comprehand the significance and profound impact the rainbow has on us. by the time we have evolved spiritually and mentally, we'll all be 6 feet under man.
as to the glowing light you talked about, i believe it was my brother who first lit the candles that paved the way for my self discovery whilst in the dark. getting me the communist manifesto at age 18 was quite a way to start. i believe the external environment plays a big role in the development of a person. if my brother can influence me, and in turn the people around him feel inspired enough to do the same to others, perhaps a gradual change will occur if albeit slowly but surely. whats important is that we keep this inextinguishable passion for discovery burning bright like the tiger in the night.
Post a Comment
<< Home