All The Things in Life that Matter

"Personality is two things: (a) generalizations about human nature, and (b) explorations of individual differences.What generalizations can we make about human nature? Sociology, anthropology, and evolutionary psychology suggest three. First, people always live in groups. Second, every group has a status hierarchy. Third, every group has a religion, which is typically used to justify the status hierarchy and the existing moral and legal systems. This suggests that there are three overriding themes in individual lives: (a) efforts to get along with other people (because we live with them); (b) efforts to attain some power, status, and control of resources (more is always better); and (c) efforts to make some sense out of our lives (by interpreting them in terms of a quasi-philosophical system.)

Personality psychology is also about individual differences. People differ from one another in many, many ways. These three generalizations - that people want acceptance, status, and meaning - suggest what the most important domains of individual differences might be. The first domain will concern individual differences in the desire for, and the ability to obtain, social acceptance and support. The second will concern individual differences in the desire for, and the ability to obtain, status, power, and the control of resources. The third will concern individuals in the desire for meaning and purpose in life."

- Robert Hogan, In Defense of Personality Psychology: New Wine for Old Whiners, 2005


Indeed, leaders are people who excel in their ability to gain acceptance and support, power and status, and to make meaning.

Doused In A Cacophony Of

I was walking home from the MRT station today at about midnight and zoning out to music as usual when, at the quieter area around Serangoon Ave 4, I suddenly realised that there were two Indian construction workers lying on the pavement I'm walking on a few metres ahead of me, probably trying to get some sleep.

As with how thinking goes, we are often more aware of the result of our thought processes than the thought processes themselves. A barely noticeable flurry of thoughts came and went and at that moment, all I could be bothered to be aware of was that I felt a very profound sadness about the whole situation.



I was reading stuff when I just suddenly thought about how terrifyingly influential the things we leave around the house can be especially to our other family members. Pills, knives, dollar bills and watches, to name a few. The innuendoes people associate with things we drop in insiduous, subconscious but visible corners can overlap with the angst and fears amongst other bad emotions they have from their day to day lives, and become a sickening constant reinforcement of how they eventually perceive the world to work, even without knowing it.



Anyway, I also just considered and entertained the possibility that I might be someone who prefers it that people do not change. It's not that I feel threatened by the unpredictability of people that I know and much less the longing for specific moments in time (especially the good ones) to remain as they are, but rather more of in a dynamic sense - that people have their roles and characters to play within the social framework that makes up my life as a stage and I'm fond of that. I guess in particular I treasure uniqueness and personalities, even if they're bad ones.

One aspect of this is happening with increasing salience as people grow from kids into adults. Before university, everyone had a personality that was more or less concrete in a reckless manner, especially because JCs and secondary schools provided the comfort of cliques we thought would last forever and we were accepted as who we were that way. Once broken up and individuated into a more 'serious' place, as declared by society, like university - the precursor to being completely accountable for everything we do - we hide our past because we do not know everyone, while functioning according to the new norms of adulthood which we can only learn along the way. And everyone assumes that we won't be understood if we continue behaving with the quirky and idiosyncratic personalities we had back then. Not wanting to make mistakes and to make things as smooth sailing as possible, who we once were gets compromised. The final sparks of childhood are fading away.

Childhood quirks aside, principles and values in people and the opinions that they have that make up their personalities and character can change too, and that is another aspect I'd prefer to remain the same if possible. I have no idea if it's just me, and even then with adequate thought I've concluded that it's merely a preference.



The exams are FINALLY here. Space between now and the papers always breeds a certain degree of denial which can be a bother to put down. Now life is beginning to have a degree of certainty.




Love may be blind but marriage is a real eye-opener.

Audio Candy:
Alexisonfire - Rough Hands

When Everything Feels Like The Movies

It is fascinating how it paradoxically takes a great deal of reflection and detachment from oneself in order to experience or understand oneself in one's full tangible entirety. By associative means, we find the meanings and values to things that matter to us. We patronise movies and songs when we chance upon symbolic meanings in them, embracing undertones and calling them our own. Blogs play on this, as friends excitedly scramble to read what others have to say of a common activity in order to relive experiences in the words of others. How often have we had that immense sensation of deja vu, of intimacy, with a form of art that we can identify with when it strikes a chord with some personal experience of our own? Few or not, when the frequencies of our lives match with that of a poetic verse, a grand painting or a punchline in a song, the amplitude of recognizable emotion reverberates ten-fold with a fond understanding of ourselves captured in the canvas of an artpiece.

Likewise, we are equally fond of defining ourselves, or others, by the things within one's personal sphere. Profile sites pay due homage to lists of hobbies, favourite music and books, because they offer both an expression of the self as well as a mask - neither hidden in personality nor concrete in accuracy, with a tinge of cheekiness when the subversive nature of such proclamations are understood and can be harnessed to greater, deeper meaning, like when someone wishes to demonstrate his sarcasm by writing an ironic description of himself rather than stating bluntly that he is sarcastic. People indulge in forming ideals - of their significant other, of their goals and passions, of a multitude of other frivolous things - and hold them dear because we think, and perhaps know, that these define us for who we are. Sooner or later, we become defined by the company we associate with and, with his reciprocation well-understood, we deem it valid to judge others by their friends, amongst other things in one's personal realm.

We humans are a complicated lot as we opt for the merry-go-rounds to get to the point. And it is this folly that contributes to making us all the more human for it. Great artists understand this as well as its utility in the parodic nature of art, and revel and bask in the skilful manipulation of emotions to excite or soothe the senses. And as for the rest of us, we continue to seek external symbols to call our own in order to become the persons we hope to be.




"All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their own peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors."

"Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life."

- Oscar Wilde

Audio Candy:
Drew Sidora - 'Til The Dawn

'Cos She's Cool

I think it's really kickass to be able to say you like a girl cos she's cool.

It's as innocent as it gets. It entails admiring her just for the things she does the way she does, not because she's a great looker or because she's famous or because she's got huge boobs or something. Not because you're getting insecure cos everyone else around you is getting attached or because you're getting old and your biological clock is ticking.

And ultimately it's like knowing that you're in for a real kickass time spent in her company and, quite simply to me, nothing excites me as much that way.




There are no such things as ugly girls, only lazy girls.

Audio Candy:
The Moldy Peaches - Anyone Else But You