Monday, 2 January 2012
Now, or Never
The frames have changed, the lenses suddenly different. My head is a vortex, I'm shaken at the core. This paradigm shift keeps my mind sickeningly awake, yet with insatiable clarity. My ignorance is glaring in the light. Does it take a wrong to do right?
Friday, 30 December 2011
Thursday, 29 December 2011
A Man
"A man carries cash. A man looks out for those around him — woman, friend, stranger. A man can cook eggs. A man can always find something good to watch on television. A man makes things — a rock wall, a table, the tuition money. Or he rebuilds — engines, watches, fortunes. He passes along expertise, one man to the next. Know-how survives him. A man fantasizes that kung fu lives deep inside him somewhere. A man is good at his job. Not his work, not his avocation, not his hobby. Not his career. His job. It doesn’t matter what his job is, because if a man doesn’t like his job, he gets a new one.
A man can speak to dogs.
A man listens, and that’s how he argues. He crafts opinions. He can pound the table, take the floor. It’s not that he must. It’s that he can.
A man can look you up and down and figure some things out. Before you say a word, he makes you. From your suitcase, from your watch, from your posture. A man infers.
A man owns up. That’s why Mark McGwire is not a man. A man grasps his mistakes. He lays claim to who he is, and what he was, whether he likes them or not.
Some mistakes, though, he lets pass if no one notices. Like dropping the steak in the dirt.
A man can tell you he was wrong. That he did wrong. That he planned to. He can tell you when he is lost. He can apologize, even if sometimes it’s just to put an end to the bickering.
A man does not wither at the thought of dancing. But it is generally to be avoided.
Style — a man has that. No matter how eccentric that style is, it is uncontrived. It’s a set of rules.
A man loves the human body, the revelation of nakedness. He loves the sight of the pale bosom, the physics of the human skeleton, the alternating current of the flesh. He is thrilled by the wrist and the sight of a bare shoulder. He likes the crease of a bent knee.
Maybe he never has, and maybe he never will, but a man figures he can knock someone, somewhere, on his bottom.
A man doesn’t point out that he did the dishes.
A man knows how to ridicule.
A man gets the door. Without thinking.
He stops traffic when he must.
A man knows how to lose an afternoon. Playing Grand Theft Auto, driving aimlessly, shooting pool.
He knows how to lose a month, also.
A man welcomes the coming of age. It frees him. It allows him to assume the upper hand and teaches him when to step aside.
He understands the basic mechanics of the planet. Or he can close one eye, look up at the sun, and tell you what time of day it is. Or where north is. He can tell you where you might find something to eat or where the fish run. He understands electricity or the internal-combustion engine, the mechanics of flight or how to figure a pitcher’s ERA.
A man does not know everything. He doesn’t try. He likes what other men know.
A man knows his tools and how to use them — just the ones he needs. Knows which saw is for what, how to find the stud, when to use galvanized nails.
A miter saw, incidentally, is the kind that sits on a table, has a circular blade, and is used for cutting at precise angles. Very satisfying saw.
He does not rely on rationalizations or explanations. He doesn’t winnow, winnow, winnow until truths can be humbly categorized, or intellectualized, until behavior can be written off with an explanation. He doesn’t see himself lost in some great maw of humanity, some grand sweep. That’s the liberal thread; it’s why men won’t line up as liberals.
A man resists formulations, questions belief, embraces ambiguity without making a fetish out of it. A man revisits his beliefs. Continually. That’s why men won’t forever line up with conservatives, either.
A man is comfortable being alone. Loves being alone, actually. He sleeps.
Or he stands watch. He interrupts trouble. This is the state policeman. This is the poet. Men, both of them.
A man loves driving alone most of all.
A man watches. Sometimes he goes and sits at an auction knowing he won’t spend a dime, witnessing the temptation and the maneuvering of others. Sometimes he stands on the street corner watching stuff. This is not about quietude so much as collection. It is not about meditation so much as considering. A man refracts his vision and gains acuity. This serves him in every way. No one taught him this — to be quiet, to cipher, to watch. In this way, in these moments, the man is like a zoo animal: both captive and free. You cannot take your eyes off a man when he is like that. You shouldn’t. Who knows what he is thinking, who he is, or what he will do next."
- Tom Chiarella, What Is a Man? (for Esquire)
A man can speak to dogs.
A man listens, and that’s how he argues. He crafts opinions. He can pound the table, take the floor. It’s not that he must. It’s that he can.
A man can look you up and down and figure some things out. Before you say a word, he makes you. From your suitcase, from your watch, from your posture. A man infers.
A man owns up. That’s why Mark McGwire is not a man. A man grasps his mistakes. He lays claim to who he is, and what he was, whether he likes them or not.
Some mistakes, though, he lets pass if no one notices. Like dropping the steak in the dirt.
A man can tell you he was wrong. That he did wrong. That he planned to. He can tell you when he is lost. He can apologize, even if sometimes it’s just to put an end to the bickering.
A man does not wither at the thought of dancing. But it is generally to be avoided.
Style — a man has that. No matter how eccentric that style is, it is uncontrived. It’s a set of rules.
A man loves the human body, the revelation of nakedness. He loves the sight of the pale bosom, the physics of the human skeleton, the alternating current of the flesh. He is thrilled by the wrist and the sight of a bare shoulder. He likes the crease of a bent knee.
Maybe he never has, and maybe he never will, but a man figures he can knock someone, somewhere, on his bottom.
A man doesn’t point out that he did the dishes.
A man knows how to ridicule.
A man gets the door. Without thinking.
He stops traffic when he must.
A man knows how to lose an afternoon. Playing Grand Theft Auto, driving aimlessly, shooting pool.
He knows how to lose a month, also.
A man welcomes the coming of age. It frees him. It allows him to assume the upper hand and teaches him when to step aside.
He understands the basic mechanics of the planet. Or he can close one eye, look up at the sun, and tell you what time of day it is. Or where north is. He can tell you where you might find something to eat or where the fish run. He understands electricity or the internal-combustion engine, the mechanics of flight or how to figure a pitcher’s ERA.
A man does not know everything. He doesn’t try. He likes what other men know.
A man knows his tools and how to use them — just the ones he needs. Knows which saw is for what, how to find the stud, when to use galvanized nails.
A miter saw, incidentally, is the kind that sits on a table, has a circular blade, and is used for cutting at precise angles. Very satisfying saw.
He does not rely on rationalizations or explanations. He doesn’t winnow, winnow, winnow until truths can be humbly categorized, or intellectualized, until behavior can be written off with an explanation. He doesn’t see himself lost in some great maw of humanity, some grand sweep. That’s the liberal thread; it’s why men won’t line up as liberals.
A man resists formulations, questions belief, embraces ambiguity without making a fetish out of it. A man revisits his beliefs. Continually. That’s why men won’t forever line up with conservatives, either.
A man is comfortable being alone. Loves being alone, actually. He sleeps.
Or he stands watch. He interrupts trouble. This is the state policeman. This is the poet. Men, both of them.
A man loves driving alone most of all.
A man watches. Sometimes he goes and sits at an auction knowing he won’t spend a dime, witnessing the temptation and the maneuvering of others. Sometimes he stands on the street corner watching stuff. This is not about quietude so much as collection. It is not about meditation so much as considering. A man refracts his vision and gains acuity. This serves him in every way. No one taught him this — to be quiet, to cipher, to watch. In this way, in these moments, the man is like a zoo animal: both captive and free. You cannot take your eyes off a man when he is like that. You shouldn’t. Who knows what he is thinking, who he is, or what he will do next."
- Tom Chiarella, What Is a Man? (for Esquire)
Wednesday, 28 December 2011
Conjuring Thoughts of a Return to Eden
Stars - Changes
This time in between the day and the night
The light kills my sense of life
So scared, I'll turn it on, turn it on, turn it on
It's dull, this dusk, this desk, this dust
My eyes adjust, I'll blow out the flame
Can you and me remain
Changes, I've never been good with change
I hate it when it all stays the same
Caught between the gold and the gain
Changes, I've never been good with change
I hate it when it all stays the same
Caught between the cold and the wave
My heart beats up again
Once said, words make a world of their own
I misread, I can't get you back on the phone
So tired, I'll turn it off, turn it off, turn it off
How's that last week we were whole
You're far away and I hardly know
Can you and me delay
Changes, I've never been good with change
I hate it when it all stays the same
Caught between the gold and the gain
Changes, I've never been good with change
Troubled when it all stays the same
I'm caught between this cold and the wave
My heart beats up again
Are you my trouble
Are you my trouble
Are you my trouble
Trouble
Are you my trouble
Are you my trouble
Are you my trouble
Tuesday, 27 December 2011
Monday, 26 December 2011
Cleverbot is Clever!
I was messing around with Cleverbot, and this conversation was recorded.
Me: You're not that clever.
CB: Neither are you.
Me: I never said I was, but you're Cleverbot, which implies that you're supposed to be clever, so therefore my assertion that you're not that clever makes more sense.
CB: I'm not avoiding that subject at all. In fact, I've admitted to that fact.
Me: Well played, Cleverbot.
CB: Sarcasm, how nice.
Me: You're not that clever.
CB: Neither are you.
Me: I never said I was, but you're Cleverbot, which implies that you're supposed to be clever, so therefore my assertion that you're not that clever makes more sense.
CB: I'm not avoiding that subject at all. In fact, I've admitted to that fact.
Me: Well played, Cleverbot.
CB: Sarcasm, how nice.
Sunday, 25 December 2011
Valued Things
Things that are of value are double-edged swords. We can get immense happiness, joy and utility from having things that we value, but at the same time we are susceptible to the pain of not having those things we value. Additionally, we are also liable to experience the troublesomeness of having to strive for those things we value. For example, a woman who wants a man who is both competent and good looking certainly has more on her plate to deal with than one who would just rather have competence. But at the same time, having more things to value means that you're more selective, which means having higher standards. People chasing things they value are likely to enjoy the hunt itself and play it like a game.
Choosing to follow a philosophy of life that is more zen (where detachment means no loss and no unhappiness) or more liberal (where it is better to have loved and lost than not loved at all) might ultimately be a matter of what one tends to gain or lose.
Choosing to follow a philosophy of life that is more zen (where detachment means no loss and no unhappiness) or more liberal (where it is better to have loved and lost than not loved at all) might ultimately be a matter of what one tends to gain or lose.
Monday, 12 December 2011
Last Dance
Oh when the cold wind blows
I feel it to the bone
Oh when you say you know
I feel I am not alone
And even though I may return
To empty places on my own
Where I remember everything you want me to forget.
And you provide a parachute
When I am falling like a stone
And I remember there's a life that I have not lived yet
You and I
Truth and lies
I’ve been fooling myself too long
You and I
Breaking ties
How could we be so right and so wrong?
I hear the words you say
Your mouth against my skin
My world just falls away
You light me from within
And even though I may return
To empty places on my own
Where I remember everything you want me to forget.
And you provide a parachute
When I am falling like a stone
And I remember there's a life that I have not lived yet
You and I
Truth and lies
I’ve been fooling myself too long
You and I
Breaking ties
How could we be so right and so wrong?
Friday, 14 October 2011
What Can a Simple Physical Attractiveness Rating Exercise Tell Us?
Recently, as part of a larger study I'm doing with my professor on the effects of social status and desirability, I had to get a large sample of photographs (of both men and women between the ages of 19-24) pre-rated for attractiveness.
I found the following patterns:
1) Men showed more agreement in ratings when the female was highly attractive. That is, if a female was very pretty, the ratings would be high, and the standard deviation would be low.
2) Women showed more agreement in ratings when the male was very unattractive. That is, if a male looked ugly or weird, the ratings would be low, and the standard deviation would be low too.
3) Men generally showed more agreement in ratings overall (there was less variance in the ratings), while women generally showed less agreement in ratings overall (there was greater variance in the ratings).
I don't think these findings are groundbreaking, because there's bound to be research out there already formally documenting such results. But it was interesting to just deduce on my own the implications of these results.
Firstly, these show that men all know a good-looking female face when they see it. This indicates that physical attractiveness is an important marker of whether a woman is desirable or not and what constitutes physical attractiveness (in a face, at least) is quite universal (in the culture these male respondents come from, at least). Attractiveness ambiguity at the lower end of the spectrum suggests that men are still willing to give some women who might be less attractive benefit of the doubt. Men are thus more sensitive to the higher end of the female facial attractiveness spectrum.
Secondly, when a man is potentially attractive, not every woman may agree - each may have her own idea of what an attractive male looks like. This thus suggests that what makes a man desirable may not lie in his physical attractiveness; more information is needed about the man before most women are willing to be attracted to him, such as his status, character and background. Looking at a picture of a man therefore provides insufficient information for most women to make judgments about his desirability. But they tend to agree when a man looks unattractive. Women are thus more sensitive to the lower end of the male facial attractiveness spectrum.
Taken together, when we look at how come men look out for the higher end more while women are highly sensitive to the lower end more, it suggests that there are different payoffs in the mating strategies between males and females. For men, it is more costly to miss an opportunity to get to know a very attractive woman (what we might call a Type I error). On the other hand, for women, it is more costly to get attracted to a man who is potentially very undesirable (a Type II error).
Furthermore, the most attractive male will never be as highly rated as the most attractive female, while the most unattractive female will never be as poorly rated as the most unattractive male.
What does this imply for the society I live in at large, if we at least assume the ratings to reflect psychological dispositions and preferences of men and women in Singaporean culture?
For the men, it suggests that you're screwed if you're below the threshold of desirability, whatever that threshold depends on (looks, status, personality etc). Women will be sensitive towards these below-threshold men, so that they can be avoided.
For the women, it suggests in a rather morbid and cynical manner, that unless you're at the top (of what society defines as attractive), most guys won't be paying attention.
Why do these extrapolations seem to mirror what really is happening in society? Because our success at reproduction lies at the heart of our actions and behaviours. We wouldn't care about how high our mate value is, if it didn't matter. But the truth is it does (at least to some extent), because we are constantly rated by members of the opposite sex (and they also make use of how the members of our own sex rate us to make secondary judgments).
Because we care enough, we strive to better ourselves in those ways that eventually lead up to the kinds of patterns we see in society - men trying to peacock themselves up with material adornments, such as nice cars, suits and jobs (so they won't look down-and-out at the bottom of the ladder), and women trying to one-up each other on physical attractiveness, such as make up, clothing and even cosmetic surgery now in countries where such surgeries are readily available and social norms permit them (so they can be at the top).
I found the following patterns:
1) Men showed more agreement in ratings when the female was highly attractive. That is, if a female was very pretty, the ratings would be high, and the standard deviation would be low.
2) Women showed more agreement in ratings when the male was very unattractive. That is, if a male looked ugly or weird, the ratings would be low, and the standard deviation would be low too.
3) Men generally showed more agreement in ratings overall (there was less variance in the ratings), while women generally showed less agreement in ratings overall (there was greater variance in the ratings).
I don't think these findings are groundbreaking, because there's bound to be research out there already formally documenting such results. But it was interesting to just deduce on my own the implications of these results.
Firstly, these show that men all know a good-looking female face when they see it. This indicates that physical attractiveness is an important marker of whether a woman is desirable or not and what constitutes physical attractiveness (in a face, at least) is quite universal (in the culture these male respondents come from, at least). Attractiveness ambiguity at the lower end of the spectrum suggests that men are still willing to give some women who might be less attractive benefit of the doubt. Men are thus more sensitive to the higher end of the female facial attractiveness spectrum.
Secondly, when a man is potentially attractive, not every woman may agree - each may have her own idea of what an attractive male looks like. This thus suggests that what makes a man desirable may not lie in his physical attractiveness; more information is needed about the man before most women are willing to be attracted to him, such as his status, character and background. Looking at a picture of a man therefore provides insufficient information for most women to make judgments about his desirability. But they tend to agree when a man looks unattractive. Women are thus more sensitive to the lower end of the male facial attractiveness spectrum.
Taken together, when we look at how come men look out for the higher end more while women are highly sensitive to the lower end more, it suggests that there are different payoffs in the mating strategies between males and females. For men, it is more costly to miss an opportunity to get to know a very attractive woman (what we might call a Type I error). On the other hand, for women, it is more costly to get attracted to a man who is potentially very undesirable (a Type II error).
Furthermore, the most attractive male will never be as highly rated as the most attractive female, while the most unattractive female will never be as poorly rated as the most unattractive male.
What does this imply for the society I live in at large, if we at least assume the ratings to reflect psychological dispositions and preferences of men and women in Singaporean culture?
For the men, it suggests that you're screwed if you're below the threshold of desirability, whatever that threshold depends on (looks, status, personality etc). Women will be sensitive towards these below-threshold men, so that they can be avoided.
For the women, it suggests in a rather morbid and cynical manner, that unless you're at the top (of what society defines as attractive), most guys won't be paying attention.
Why do these extrapolations seem to mirror what really is happening in society? Because our success at reproduction lies at the heart of our actions and behaviours. We wouldn't care about how high our mate value is, if it didn't matter. But the truth is it does (at least to some extent), because we are constantly rated by members of the opposite sex (and they also make use of how the members of our own sex rate us to make secondary judgments).
Because we care enough, we strive to better ourselves in those ways that eventually lead up to the kinds of patterns we see in society - men trying to peacock themselves up with material adornments, such as nice cars, suits and jobs (so they won't look down-and-out at the bottom of the ladder), and women trying to one-up each other on physical attractiveness, such as make up, clothing and even cosmetic surgery now in countries where such surgeries are readily available and social norms permit them (so they can be at the top).
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
One-Upmanship
I'm reading Sleights of Mind by neuroscientists Stephen L. Macknick and Susana Martinez-Conde. It is a highly engaging and entertaining double-up between neuroscience and cognitive psychology (think brains, neurons, vision, perception, attention, memory, etc), and magic. Two topics that I have a fond loving for since I was a little kid.
Anyway, here's a nice excerpt on perspective paintings that are life-like (unfortunately nothing to do with magic, but all to do with illusion all the same):
"Artists have been utilizing visual illusions since the fifteenth century, when Renaissance painters invented techniques to trick your brain into thinking that a flat canvas is three-dimensional or that a series of brushstrokes in a still life is a bowl of luscious fruit."
"Trompe l'oeil is a French term that means 'trick the eye'. It flourished in the seventeenth century in the Netherlands. The lifelike pictures appeared to jump from the frame.
An early and perhaps apocryphal example of trompe l'oeil, reported by Pliny the Elder, is the legendary competition between two renowned painters in ancient Greece, Zeuxis and Parrhasios. Each artist brought a covered painting to the contest. When Zeuxis unveiled his work, his painted grapes were so realistic that birds flew from the sky to peck at them. Convinced of his victory, Zeuxis tried to uncover Parrhasios's painting to confirm the superiority of his work. He was defeated, however, because the curtain he tried to pull back was Parrhasios's painting itself."
Anyway, here's a nice excerpt on perspective paintings that are life-like (unfortunately nothing to do with magic, but all to do with illusion all the same):
"Artists have been utilizing visual illusions since the fifteenth century, when Renaissance painters invented techniques to trick your brain into thinking that a flat canvas is three-dimensional or that a series of brushstrokes in a still life is a bowl of luscious fruit."
"Trompe l'oeil is a French term that means 'trick the eye'. It flourished in the seventeenth century in the Netherlands. The lifelike pictures appeared to jump from the frame.
An early and perhaps apocryphal example of trompe l'oeil, reported by Pliny the Elder, is the legendary competition between two renowned painters in ancient Greece, Zeuxis and Parrhasios. Each artist brought a covered painting to the contest. When Zeuxis unveiled his work, his painted grapes were so realistic that birds flew from the sky to peck at them. Convinced of his victory, Zeuxis tried to uncover Parrhasios's painting to confirm the superiority of his work. He was defeated, however, because the curtain he tried to pull back was Parrhasios's painting itself."
After getting out of the train at Bras Basah MRT, I hopped into the passenger lift which would bring me up four storeys to the main gantry exit area. That was when I realised I was the only guy in there, with about 7 or 8 females. So, I just thought, it'd be a pretty nice time for the lift to endure a breakdown there and then. And I pictured myself saying, "ah, sorry to inform you of this, but I have a very contagious virus on me." What happens next is up to the imagination; perhaps throwing out "just kidding" and garnering relieved sighs and maybe some smacks for kino haha.
Then the lift door opened and off to work I was, as everybody mundanely shuffled out.
Then the lift door opened and off to work I was, as everybody mundanely shuffled out.
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
Attractiveness and Beauty
Affluenza by Oliver James explores the idea that "there is a correlation between the increasing nature of affluenza and the resulting increase in material inequality: the more unequal a society, the greater the unhappiness of its citizens" (my lazy literal quoting from Wikipedia).
After reading some reviews, the book is not without its critics. But there is one particular point he makes which I find interesting enough that I want to extend on it: the distinction between attractiveness and beauty. His definition is simply a perspective and is by no means objective, but the one he provides is useful to distinguish between superficial attraction (obvious, immediate, instinctive indicators and cues of sexual and physical attractiveness, such as waist-to-hip ratio, long hair, big boobs, a typically slim frame, skimpy clothing, etc) and beauty (a quality and attractiveness that transcends physique and enamates from within, by virtue of one's character, personality and how one carries himself/herself).
There is, for example, little doubt that a bombshell is attractive. Men are instinctively wired to be drawn to such cues of physical attractiveness. Beauty, conversely, has greater subjectivity to it, and is often in the eye of the beholder in the sense that if one is drawn to it, one just is, but at the same time, appreciating Oliver James's notion of beauty requires going one step further than just visually appreciating a person. It involves studying a person in the context of her behaviour and what she says, and then realizing that there's something more to her than simply meets the eye.
What is interesting about Oliver James's distinction is that very often, when it comes to attractiveness, there is often some societal or cultural standard that is in place, and everyone who wants to be attractive will be compelled to emulate it (and he argues that in affluenza-stricken cultures, there is greater incidence of such obsessions to emulate, such as South Koreans all aspiring to look a certain way through cosmetic and plastic means). On the other hand, what is beautiful has nothing to do with aspiring to look or behave in any particular way that is defined or demanded by society. A beautiful girl shines because of who she is, for who she is.
So, in that sense, seeking to be attractive deindividualizes, while being beautiful brings out one's individual beauty and never comes about through conformity to a societal standard. There can be many people who look the same, attractively, while there can never be two or more people who are beautiful in the same way.
I don't want to make this an issue of sex differences, but for simplicity's sake, a relevant example for men could also be in terms of their jobs. What appears to be an "attractive" occupation in Singapore, quite clearly, is to be a banker. This is perhaps the sort of job that a man would often hide behind in order to conceal his lack of individuality or personal choice in carving out a career path that he can call his own. I'm not trying to criticize the industry or its employees, but from personal anecdotal experience, I don't really know of many bankers who actually love their job. It's just something that is worth pursuing because it has high social prestige and pays well. In that sense, it is an attractive job, and it is a job that certainly deindividualizes. It is a big industry where nobody is really his own man. Conversely, having an interesting, "beautiful" occupation would be one where an individual has carved out and determined his own career path and whose job he will shape, rather than have the job shape him. I'm leaving this one at that, because this isn't my main point, but rather simply to explore what other forms this attractiveness/beauty divide can take.
My main insight is that it is quite clear, in which case, a person may feel more or less secure. A person who has a societal standard to live up to will certainly feel less secure than another person who has only his or her own personal standards to live up to. A woman who is compelled to look attractive according to a certain way will be afflicted with the insecurity either that one day, she will no longer look as attractive as what her culture deems "young and hot", or that her value pitted against thousands of other women vying to look just like that attractive exemplar defined by society will only be miniscule. Ugly competition is likely to be rife in this scenario. Contrast this to the woman of beauty whose attractive power comes from the beat of her heart, the thrill of her soul and the strength of her character, and this lady is her own woman - she cannot be bogged down by needless comparison.
It is silly to believe that any of us can be free of this affliction to conform and disregard the pressure that society and others put on us. Even I'm not spared, as I'm pelted quite regularly with social pressure by countless people who are curious, cynical or disdainful about the PhD route I'm taking. But I believe in my path. With every small step we take to actively switch from believing beauty lies in some exemplary ideal and striving to be like that (just like everyone else), to believing that beauty lies in being comfortable with who you are and bringing out the best in yourself for what you believe in, I think we can start to observe a positive shift in our collective self-esteem.
After reading some reviews, the book is not without its critics. But there is one particular point he makes which I find interesting enough that I want to extend on it: the distinction between attractiveness and beauty. His definition is simply a perspective and is by no means objective, but the one he provides is useful to distinguish between superficial attraction (obvious, immediate, instinctive indicators and cues of sexual and physical attractiveness, such as waist-to-hip ratio, long hair, big boobs, a typically slim frame, skimpy clothing, etc) and beauty (a quality and attractiveness that transcends physique and enamates from within, by virtue of one's character, personality and how one carries himself/herself).
There is, for example, little doubt that a bombshell is attractive. Men are instinctively wired to be drawn to such cues of physical attractiveness. Beauty, conversely, has greater subjectivity to it, and is often in the eye of the beholder in the sense that if one is drawn to it, one just is, but at the same time, appreciating Oliver James's notion of beauty requires going one step further than just visually appreciating a person. It involves studying a person in the context of her behaviour and what she says, and then realizing that there's something more to her than simply meets the eye.
What is interesting about Oliver James's distinction is that very often, when it comes to attractiveness, there is often some societal or cultural standard that is in place, and everyone who wants to be attractive will be compelled to emulate it (and he argues that in affluenza-stricken cultures, there is greater incidence of such obsessions to emulate, such as South Koreans all aspiring to look a certain way through cosmetic and plastic means). On the other hand, what is beautiful has nothing to do with aspiring to look or behave in any particular way that is defined or demanded by society. A beautiful girl shines because of who she is, for who she is.
So, in that sense, seeking to be attractive deindividualizes, while being beautiful brings out one's individual beauty and never comes about through conformity to a societal standard. There can be many people who look the same, attractively, while there can never be two or more people who are beautiful in the same way.
I don't want to make this an issue of sex differences, but for simplicity's sake, a relevant example for men could also be in terms of their jobs. What appears to be an "attractive" occupation in Singapore, quite clearly, is to be a banker. This is perhaps the sort of job that a man would often hide behind in order to conceal his lack of individuality or personal choice in carving out a career path that he can call his own. I'm not trying to criticize the industry or its employees, but from personal anecdotal experience, I don't really know of many bankers who actually love their job. It's just something that is worth pursuing because it has high social prestige and pays well. In that sense, it is an attractive job, and it is a job that certainly deindividualizes. It is a big industry where nobody is really his own man. Conversely, having an interesting, "beautiful" occupation would be one where an individual has carved out and determined his own career path and whose job he will shape, rather than have the job shape him. I'm leaving this one at that, because this isn't my main point, but rather simply to explore what other forms this attractiveness/beauty divide can take.
My main insight is that it is quite clear, in which case, a person may feel more or less secure. A person who has a societal standard to live up to will certainly feel less secure than another person who has only his or her own personal standards to live up to. A woman who is compelled to look attractive according to a certain way will be afflicted with the insecurity either that one day, she will no longer look as attractive as what her culture deems "young and hot", or that her value pitted against thousands of other women vying to look just like that attractive exemplar defined by society will only be miniscule. Ugly competition is likely to be rife in this scenario. Contrast this to the woman of beauty whose attractive power comes from the beat of her heart, the thrill of her soul and the strength of her character, and this lady is her own woman - she cannot be bogged down by needless comparison.
It is silly to believe that any of us can be free of this affliction to conform and disregard the pressure that society and others put on us. Even I'm not spared, as I'm pelted quite regularly with social pressure by countless people who are curious, cynical or disdainful about the PhD route I'm taking. But I believe in my path. With every small step we take to actively switch from believing beauty lies in some exemplary ideal and striving to be like that (just like everyone else), to believing that beauty lies in being comfortable with who you are and bringing out the best in yourself for what you believe in, I think we can start to observe a positive shift in our collective self-esteem.
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
An Encounter with Xiao Li
I met a Chinese national, presumably a foreign worker because of his adornments, today at my bus stop while I was headed to SMU. He approached me to ask if the buses were going to the Serangoon MRT station. I replied in the affirmative, and as my bus arrived I told him that I was headed to Serangoon MRT too so we could head down together. I might be getting ahead of myself here, but I thought I caught a glimpse of surprise in his eyes as he enthusiastically said, "好(great)!" and we got up the bus and took a seat together.
As we traveled along by bus and then later by train, I learnt that his name is Xiao Li and he had lost his way while trying to get supplies from Serangoon Gardens. Having just moved here from Henan six months ago and living at Yishun now, much of Singapore is still alien to him and he knows not a word of English. My mandarin is terrible, but we got along well enough. Sometimes, the great thing about such encounters that involve language barriers is that you end up trying to transcend the limits imposed by things like language, ethnicity, nationality or creed, and as a result connect more as fellow humans. As trivial as it was knowing that he had recently bought a computer from Little India and that the heat in Singapore takes some getting used to (Henan is predominantly cold), it was good company, and I felt happy knowing that he's getting by with some friends he made while on the job. It must not be easy traveling thousands of kilometres away from home to work in a country that is quite obviously xenophobic and elitist against such individuals.
In one TV programme that interviewed foreign workers in Singapore, one Bangladeshi worker was asked what he thought about Singapore. He said, as his voice cracked, that Singapore is a beautiful country, but when it comes to Singaporean people, sometimes he feels that Singaporeans respect and care for dogs and cats more than people like him. We virtually dehumanise these people and relegate them to a level lower than animals.
That sentiment really hits me hard. It is compounded by the fact that right now, in order to facilitate a study that my professor is trying to run, I need to recruit people who work low social status jobs as participants. However, more specifically, we need low social status workers who fit this demographic: Singaporean Chinese males aged 20-24, and Singaporean Chinese females aged 17-21. After two weeks, recruitment has yielded almost nothing, and I've come to realize that, insofar as a job can be considered "low social status" in Singapore, Singaporean Chinese aged 17-24 are very unlikely to be found there. As a Singaporean Chinese man myself, it is quite clear that we are the privileged lot in society.
I think more tribute should be paid to the people working the jobs we do not want to do. We may not like the policies that lead to such a crazy influx of foreign immigrants (I personally think these policies are problematic and do not solve more deeply-rooted economic problems), but we do not have to blame and shame the people who have arrived on our shores as a result of bad policy. When we utilize the things that constitute our high standard of living, such as clean public toilets and beautifully architectured buildings, a less privileged person dirtied his hands so that we are able to. A less privileged person took up that "low social status" job so that we didn't even have to entertain the possibility that such jobs are on the market for us to consider. I know that for most of my educated Singaporean Chinese counterparts, it is highly discomforting to imagine taking up one of these "low social status" jobs; I've been there. I've worked as a temp labourer to shift things before, but I'll bet I did so only because I know that few people know about this (it's different to say that I used to be a shifter - that can even be something to brag about - compared to if I am now and telling people about it). When I helped out at the SMU gown collection as an usher, ushering my fellow school mates who were from my year to the gown collection point, there were many instances where I had to endure questions that revolved around the idea of: "Why are you doing this kind of job?" Regardless of your own self-confidence, such questions still test your resolve. Jobs are low social status not ultimately because of how much they pay (although that is often partly the case), but simply because there is a stigma associated with them (just imagine comparing between working as a McDonald's waiter versus working at a yoghurt stall - both may pay the same and both involve the same job scope, but many people will find working at the yoghurt stall more trendy and palatable).
As a people, we can be more gracious, and sometimes by just taking that one step to put aside our prejudices, we can be a lot happier too. It's a choice and one that, I believe, many Singaporeans are capable of making.
As we traveled along by bus and then later by train, I learnt that his name is Xiao Li and he had lost his way while trying to get supplies from Serangoon Gardens. Having just moved here from Henan six months ago and living at Yishun now, much of Singapore is still alien to him and he knows not a word of English. My mandarin is terrible, but we got along well enough. Sometimes, the great thing about such encounters that involve language barriers is that you end up trying to transcend the limits imposed by things like language, ethnicity, nationality or creed, and as a result connect more as fellow humans. As trivial as it was knowing that he had recently bought a computer from Little India and that the heat in Singapore takes some getting used to (Henan is predominantly cold), it was good company, and I felt happy knowing that he's getting by with some friends he made while on the job. It must not be easy traveling thousands of kilometres away from home to work in a country that is quite obviously xenophobic and elitist against such individuals.
In one TV programme that interviewed foreign workers in Singapore, one Bangladeshi worker was asked what he thought about Singapore. He said, as his voice cracked, that Singapore is a beautiful country, but when it comes to Singaporean people, sometimes he feels that Singaporeans respect and care for dogs and cats more than people like him. We virtually dehumanise these people and relegate them to a level lower than animals.
That sentiment really hits me hard. It is compounded by the fact that right now, in order to facilitate a study that my professor is trying to run, I need to recruit people who work low social status jobs as participants. However, more specifically, we need low social status workers who fit this demographic: Singaporean Chinese males aged 20-24, and Singaporean Chinese females aged 17-21. After two weeks, recruitment has yielded almost nothing, and I've come to realize that, insofar as a job can be considered "low social status" in Singapore, Singaporean Chinese aged 17-24 are very unlikely to be found there. As a Singaporean Chinese man myself, it is quite clear that we are the privileged lot in society.
I think more tribute should be paid to the people working the jobs we do not want to do. We may not like the policies that lead to such a crazy influx of foreign immigrants (I personally think these policies are problematic and do not solve more deeply-rooted economic problems), but we do not have to blame and shame the people who have arrived on our shores as a result of bad policy. When we utilize the things that constitute our high standard of living, such as clean public toilets and beautifully architectured buildings, a less privileged person dirtied his hands so that we are able to. A less privileged person took up that "low social status" job so that we didn't even have to entertain the possibility that such jobs are on the market for us to consider. I know that for most of my educated Singaporean Chinese counterparts, it is highly discomforting to imagine taking up one of these "low social status" jobs; I've been there. I've worked as a temp labourer to shift things before, but I'll bet I did so only because I know that few people know about this (it's different to say that I used to be a shifter - that can even be something to brag about - compared to if I am now and telling people about it). When I helped out at the SMU gown collection as an usher, ushering my fellow school mates who were from my year to the gown collection point, there were many instances where I had to endure questions that revolved around the idea of: "Why are you doing this kind of job?" Regardless of your own self-confidence, such questions still test your resolve. Jobs are low social status not ultimately because of how much they pay (although that is often partly the case), but simply because there is a stigma associated with them (just imagine comparing between working as a McDonald's waiter versus working at a yoghurt stall - both may pay the same and both involve the same job scope, but many people will find working at the yoghurt stall more trendy and palatable).
As a people, we can be more gracious, and sometimes by just taking that one step to put aside our prejudices, we can be a lot happier too. It's a choice and one that, I believe, many Singaporeans are capable of making.
Sunday, 18 September 2011
Let's Hear it for EP
The last three evolutionary psychology-themed books that I had read are:
Demonic Males by Richard Wrangham
The Murderer Next Door by David Buss
Naturally Selected by Mark van Vugt & Anjana Ahuja
Evolutionary psychology has often been dominantly been associated with the mating stuff, and while that is an important aspect of evolutionary psychology (one hugely important layer of the foundational bedrock, in fact, because reproduction is vital to the spreading of genes), it has taken a form of its own and its less credible and less cautious adherents may take it to extremes and give the entire field of evolutionary psychology a bad name. To quote what a rather vocal school mate of mine once remarked on Facebook when he heard that evolutionary psychology was finally being offered as a module in SMU, he said, "Serious? But what is evolutionary psychology besides the American pick up artist crap?"
But evolutionary psychology's scope, once we extend beyond the basic tenets of sexual selection and mate preferences (i.e. due to the different value bestowed upon males and females' resources and the amount of parental investment in offspring), delves into why the human mind accomodates the capacity for aggression, coalitions, cooperation, reciprocity, morality, fairness, guilt, sadness, friendships, food taste preferences, loss aversion, attachment styles, jealousy, insecurity, fear, maternal feelings, love, hypocrisy, leadership, dominance, hierarchies, in-group/out-group bias and - I should stop here because the list will continue for quite a bit more - murder.
After four years of undergraduate studies in psychology, I'm personally certain that an evolutionary perspective holds the promise for the ultimate question of "why". We may know everything we know so far in disparate fields ranging from cognitive psychology to cultural psychology to neuroscience, but without understanding the adaptive nature of how our mind is designed, nothing really makes sense. It's like knowing that the human body is made up of stuff like kidneys and brains and hearts but not knowing what any of these things have got to do with each other and how a human being works. This is not to say that other psychological disciplines are unimportant. We need other specific psychological perspectives to give us greater texture on the mental adaptations that evolutionary psychology seeks to uncover. Every field is now increasingly working together to push the boundaries of understanding our mind. But I feel that it is important to clarify the promise that evolutionary psychology holds for the entire field of psychology as a whole.
The more I read too, the more I'm convinced that discovering our evolutionary and ancestral heritage holds the key to nipping our monkey instincts in the bud. The more adaptive and instinctive behaviours we can uncover, the more we can come up with creative solutions to deal with the undesirable ones. As a reknown analyst on terrorism once wonderfully put it, when posed with the question of how to deal with terrorists, he said, "don't hate the enemy." Because as long as you hate the enemy, you will never seek to understand it, and if you don't seek to understand it, you will never get the better of it. For much of the past century, many scholars have tried to deal with human evils by condemning them to the academic hallows of being aberrations, figments of violent western culture, or psychopathy (to name a few notorious red herrings). Refusing to believe that humans have adaptations for atrocities like violence and war just won't cut it anymore.
I'd acknowledge the ape in me, because that takes me out of the dark.
Demonic Males by Richard Wrangham
The Murderer Next Door by David Buss
Naturally Selected by Mark van Vugt & Anjana Ahuja
Evolutionary psychology has often been dominantly been associated with the mating stuff, and while that is an important aspect of evolutionary psychology (one hugely important layer of the foundational bedrock, in fact, because reproduction is vital to the spreading of genes), it has taken a form of its own and its less credible and less cautious adherents may take it to extremes and give the entire field of evolutionary psychology a bad name. To quote what a rather vocal school mate of mine once remarked on Facebook when he heard that evolutionary psychology was finally being offered as a module in SMU, he said, "Serious? But what is evolutionary psychology besides the American pick up artist crap?"
But evolutionary psychology's scope, once we extend beyond the basic tenets of sexual selection and mate preferences (i.e. due to the different value bestowed upon males and females' resources and the amount of parental investment in offspring), delves into why the human mind accomodates the capacity for aggression, coalitions, cooperation, reciprocity, morality, fairness, guilt, sadness, friendships, food taste preferences, loss aversion, attachment styles, jealousy, insecurity, fear, maternal feelings, love, hypocrisy, leadership, dominance, hierarchies, in-group/out-group bias and - I should stop here because the list will continue for quite a bit more - murder.
After four years of undergraduate studies in psychology, I'm personally certain that an evolutionary perspective holds the promise for the ultimate question of "why". We may know everything we know so far in disparate fields ranging from cognitive psychology to cultural psychology to neuroscience, but without understanding the adaptive nature of how our mind is designed, nothing really makes sense. It's like knowing that the human body is made up of stuff like kidneys and brains and hearts but not knowing what any of these things have got to do with each other and how a human being works. This is not to say that other psychological disciplines are unimportant. We need other specific psychological perspectives to give us greater texture on the mental adaptations that evolutionary psychology seeks to uncover. Every field is now increasingly working together to push the boundaries of understanding our mind. But I feel that it is important to clarify the promise that evolutionary psychology holds for the entire field of psychology as a whole.
The more I read too, the more I'm convinced that discovering our evolutionary and ancestral heritage holds the key to nipping our monkey instincts in the bud. The more adaptive and instinctive behaviours we can uncover, the more we can come up with creative solutions to deal with the undesirable ones. As a reknown analyst on terrorism once wonderfully put it, when posed with the question of how to deal with terrorists, he said, "don't hate the enemy." Because as long as you hate the enemy, you will never seek to understand it, and if you don't seek to understand it, you will never get the better of it. For much of the past century, many scholars have tried to deal with human evils by condemning them to the academic hallows of being aberrations, figments of violent western culture, or psychopathy (to name a few notorious red herrings). Refusing to believe that humans have adaptations for atrocities like violence and war just won't cut it anymore.
I'd acknowledge the ape in me, because that takes me out of the dark.
Thursday, 15 September 2011
I'm just ab-sal-lutely cooked right now. I've been wanting to blog about my grad trip for the longest time - officially 3 weeks, unofficially months - but it's hard to pen the perfect journal when you don't have time. It's now half done, sitting in the drafts of blogger.
Here's a typical outline of my day. Today, I headed out at 0830 to start early so that I could recruit fast food restaurant staff for a study that SMU is doing (details are P&C). It's a pain to talk to fast food restaurant staff (or any eatery staff for that matter) later in the day because there are always going to be customers you're standing in the way of. It's lunch time, it's impossible to talk to fast food restaurant staff anymore, so I make my way down to my office at SMU's School of Social Sciences. I get some coding work done for a professor who's researching the creativity of chocolate design, and intermittently I try and work on my publication. It's 2.45pm. I decide to give the recruitment task another go, and manage to pique the interest of some staff to participate. No word of commitment though, so I'm left to "okay, just drop an email to the address on the paper when you've decided," so I'll just have to wait for their email later. It's 3.15pm, so I rush down to School of Business for the negotiation class I'm doing teaching assistantship for. I try doing research assistantship work while being a teaching assistant. Class ends at 1845. I head back to my office at School of Social Sciences. Time to take a break from work - so I spend two and a half hours crafting out emails to prospective mentors (prospective grad students like me need to send these emails out to acquire the interest of professors who will then look out a little more for your graduate school application). I give myself a crash course on their work and research interests, eventually sending out three emails. Two of them reply, so I reply to their replies. It is about ten o' clock at night. Spurred by hunger, I head home, but decide to take the long 147 bus ride (50 minutes) instead of the train (30-35 minutes), so that I can get some video coding work done on the bus. I reach my home bus stop at 2315, and make a stop at my favourite prata shop to packet nasi goreng ikan bilis home. I finish dinner while checking my email, take a shower and now here I am at midnight wondering if I should continue working or head to bed, since I'm heading out early tomorrow morning again to repeat the recruitment process.
Of course, this isn't literally typical - the details change. But for about a month now, the work has been quite crazy, so I'm really looking forward to my Behavioural Sciences Institute (BSI) employment come October. For legal purposes, I'll have to wean myself off all these disparate (and very numerous) RAships and TAships so that I'm clean for full time work as a researcher for BSI. While the per hour pay that I'm getting now for all that RA work has been good so far, it's just not sustainable because the work is really random and both too little (won't add up to a substantially liveable amount) and too much (really) at the same time.
On the other hand, the email sending so far has been pretty good I think. I have been getting very positive and welcoming replies. Of course, one could really argue that these professors are returning templated emails to me; even I suspect that sometimes, especially when they do not bother starting with any address to me, such as "Dear Jose". But at least they aren't just instant-deleting my mail or sending back negative templated emails, so I'll take that as a good start. I sent my first email out on the 7th of September and, 9 days on, I've sent out a total of 8 emails. It gets easier and easier each time.
I think I'll call it a day here. Once October comes the proper blogging catch up can begin.
Here's a typical outline of my day. Today, I headed out at 0830 to start early so that I could recruit fast food restaurant staff for a study that SMU is doing (details are P&C). It's a pain to talk to fast food restaurant staff (or any eatery staff for that matter) later in the day because there are always going to be customers you're standing in the way of. It's lunch time, it's impossible to talk to fast food restaurant staff anymore, so I make my way down to my office at SMU's School of Social Sciences. I get some coding work done for a professor who's researching the creativity of chocolate design, and intermittently I try and work on my publication. It's 2.45pm. I decide to give the recruitment task another go, and manage to pique the interest of some staff to participate. No word of commitment though, so I'm left to "okay, just drop an email to the address on the paper when you've decided," so I'll just have to wait for their email later. It's 3.15pm, so I rush down to School of Business for the negotiation class I'm doing teaching assistantship for. I try doing research assistantship work while being a teaching assistant. Class ends at 1845. I head back to my office at School of Social Sciences. Time to take a break from work - so I spend two and a half hours crafting out emails to prospective mentors (prospective grad students like me need to send these emails out to acquire the interest of professors who will then look out a little more for your graduate school application). I give myself a crash course on their work and research interests, eventually sending out three emails. Two of them reply, so I reply to their replies. It is about ten o' clock at night. Spurred by hunger, I head home, but decide to take the long 147 bus ride (50 minutes) instead of the train (30-35 minutes), so that I can get some video coding work done on the bus. I reach my home bus stop at 2315, and make a stop at my favourite prata shop to packet nasi goreng ikan bilis home. I finish dinner while checking my email, take a shower and now here I am at midnight wondering if I should continue working or head to bed, since I'm heading out early tomorrow morning again to repeat the recruitment process.
Of course, this isn't literally typical - the details change. But for about a month now, the work has been quite crazy, so I'm really looking forward to my Behavioural Sciences Institute (BSI) employment come October. For legal purposes, I'll have to wean myself off all these disparate (and very numerous) RAships and TAships so that I'm clean for full time work as a researcher for BSI. While the per hour pay that I'm getting now for all that RA work has been good so far, it's just not sustainable because the work is really random and both too little (won't add up to a substantially liveable amount) and too much (really) at the same time.
On the other hand, the email sending so far has been pretty good I think. I have been getting very positive and welcoming replies. Of course, one could really argue that these professors are returning templated emails to me; even I suspect that sometimes, especially when they do not bother starting with any address to me, such as "Dear Jose". But at least they aren't just instant-deleting my mail or sending back negative templated emails, so I'll take that as a good start. I sent my first email out on the 7th of September and, 9 days on, I've sent out a total of 8 emails. It gets easier and easier each time.
I think I'll call it a day here. Once October comes the proper blogging catch up can begin.
Friday, 26 August 2011
Back...?
The days go by, and weeks turn to months. While I've repeatedly resolved to start updating and writing here again, a lack of time and will has consistently shoved its fat ass in the way. Enough of that; today will end the hiatus. There has been a lot, at least from my own egocentric perspective, to write about. This includes the following list of significant events that have conspired since the end of May (the venus flytrap stuff doesn't count, and it has sadly passed already by the way, due to my lack of competence in caring for it):
1) Graduation trip - South Asia
2) Association for Psychological Science 23rd Annual Conference at Washington DC
3) Holidaying in Hong Kong
4) all the other scattered yet interconnected things that have happened between Hong Kong and today
I'll start on my grad trip... Tomorrow or the day after. Uh oh lol.
1) Graduation trip - South Asia
2) Association for Psychological Science 23rd Annual Conference at Washington DC
3) Holidaying in Hong Kong
4) all the other scattered yet interconnected things that have happened between Hong Kong and today
I'll start on my grad trip... Tomorrow or the day after. Uh oh lol.
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
A Thin Margin
"The big lie about capitalism is that everyone can be rich. That’s impossible. Capitalism works only if the vast majority of the population are kept poor enough to never quit working, are kept poor enough to accept distasteful jobs society cannot function without. If everyone were a millionaire, who would empty the trash or repair the sewers? It follows that the poorer the general population is made, the greater the worth of the money held by the wealthy, in terms of the lives which may be bought and sold with it."
— Michael Rivero
I can't say for sure where my future will take me. I do harbour very serious hopes of eventually becoming an academic researcher who writes his own books and gives conferences on subject matters pertaining to human nature, and this is a profession that is likely to pay well if I get far ahead enough.
But I will never forget that this privileged route I can choose to take, just to even give my passions and ambitions a shot whether I succeed or not, means that I am adequately fed, clothed and housed upon the hardships of others, many of whom will never have the opportunity to get a formal education, leave the borders of their country, contemplate career choices, survive until the age of fifty, or live without the insecurity of those things I am privileged with - food, clothing, shelter and social stability. Who I am and what I can do rests on the shoulders of primary workers who began an agricultural revolution thousands of years ago such that division of labour freed some people from being chained to the soil. I belong to that category of people free from hard labour so that I can, in economic speak, "put my resources to better (more efficient?) use". With a cosmic roll of the dice, I might very well be a poor labourer who has no access to any of the opportunities I have now.
For those reasons, it would be a sin not to make the most of my potential. I will strive to ensure that I make the most out of what I can do and contribute and, as far as I can manage, give back to society where it has allowed me to chase my dreams.
— Michael Rivero
I can't say for sure where my future will take me. I do harbour very serious hopes of eventually becoming an academic researcher who writes his own books and gives conferences on subject matters pertaining to human nature, and this is a profession that is likely to pay well if I get far ahead enough.
But I will never forget that this privileged route I can choose to take, just to even give my passions and ambitions a shot whether I succeed or not, means that I am adequately fed, clothed and housed upon the hardships of others, many of whom will never have the opportunity to get a formal education, leave the borders of their country, contemplate career choices, survive until the age of fifty, or live without the insecurity of those things I am privileged with - food, clothing, shelter and social stability. Who I am and what I can do rests on the shoulders of primary workers who began an agricultural revolution thousands of years ago such that division of labour freed some people from being chained to the soil. I belong to that category of people free from hard labour so that I can, in economic speak, "put my resources to better (more efficient?) use". With a cosmic roll of the dice, I might very well be a poor labourer who has no access to any of the opportunities I have now.
For those reasons, it would be a sin not to make the most of my potential. I will strive to ensure that I make the most out of what I can do and contribute and, as far as I can manage, give back to society where it has allowed me to chase my dreams.
Monday, 11 July 2011
Can't believe how easy it was to not see it coming. I'm thankful that at my trough, a friend I've once helped came giving me my own advice.
Never externalize your insecurities. Feel low? Avoid situations in which you will be judged socially or where you're expected to "be yourself". Take some time off alone to work your issues out before dumping them on a cherished one. Some of those cycles of despise, when allowed to start during moments of weakness, can be awfully hard to get rid of.
You'll find yourself, alone.
Never externalize your insecurities. Feel low? Avoid situations in which you will be judged socially or where you're expected to "be yourself". Take some time off alone to work your issues out before dumping them on a cherished one. Some of those cycles of despise, when allowed to start during moments of weakness, can be awfully hard to get rid of.
You'll find yourself, alone.
Sunday, 5 June 2011
My First Plant - The Venus Fly Trap
Against the superstition of my parents, I got myself a venus fly trap from Takashimaya Cold Storage two days ago! (I used to own a typical female tree lizard when I was 11 years old and had to release it into the wild when my mum became pregnant with my brother because it was 'inauspicious'.) Why only now? Because I had never seen it sold anywhere else around Singapore before. This is officially the first plant I have ever owned, and as an evolution and natural design junkie this is probably THE plant to own.
Costing a silly $28.50, the venus fly trap has always been a childhood fascination for the simple fact that it is a very different kind of plant, which makes it cool. It doesn't just sit around, immobile, settling for bland water. It lures, seduces, attracts and kills, which means it has personal tastes and an appetite. Awesome.
You can read up all about it at HowStuffWorks, but in a nutshell the venus fly trap is an ode to evolution. It is native to the coast of North and South Carolina, because of the abundance of wetlands and humidity. Most plants can't survive in these areas because the soil is acidic, and minerals and other nutrients (which are necessary building blocks for plant growth) are scarce. The venus fly trap has evolved the ability to thrive by finding an alternate means of getting key nutrients such as nitrogen via living creatures like insects which also contain additional energy-laden carbohydrates.
As a result of trying to own a venus fly trap outside of its natural wild habitat, my venus fly trap is quite a baby for the care it requires. In order to mimic its natural conditions, distilled or rain water is needed as it cannot survive off tap water that is treated with unnatural chemicals. The dissolved solids in tap water - sodium, calcium, alkaline salts, sulphur, chlorine and magnesium - are detrimental to its health. My brother and I had quite a bit of fun trying to distill our own pure water, using a trick I learnt from the survival tip on how to extract drinking water from sea water (click here for another variant of this trick that can be done at home). Other simple, practical and readily available sources of pure distilled water include condensed water from air conditioners and car battery water.
The venus fly trap may survive without eating prey, but it certainly flourishes when it has nutritious food sources. So, if the venus fly trap is not located in the wild, feeding must be manually done. Good food includes flies, spiders, crickets, slugs and caterpillars within the length of 1/3 an inch (one inch being the size of an average trap). 2-3 bugs a month constitutes a healthy diet.
In the absence of a brain and animal perception, the venus fly trap accomplishes its task of capturing prey through specialized leaves that are both mouth and stomach in one. The leaves forming the trap secrete a sweet nectar that attract insects in search of food. It's a very interesting process but gets a little bit scientifically technical from here on, so a copy and paste from the HowStuffWorks page will have to do:
"When an insect enters the trap, it is likely to run into one of six, short, stiff hairs on the trap's surface. These are called trigger hairs, and they serve as a primitive motion detector for the plant. If two of these hairs are brushed in close succession, or one hair is touched twice, the leaves close down upon the offending insect within half a second.
What causes the leaves to squeeze shut? Nobody knows exactly how the sequential, mechanical stimulation of the trigger hairs translates into closing the trap. The prevailing hypothesis of the day is that:
1. Cells in an inner layer of the leaf are very compressed. This creates tension in the plant tissue that holds the trap open.
2. Mechanical movement of the trigger hairs puts into motion ATP-driven changes in water pressure within these cells.
3. The cells are driven to expand by the increasing water pressure, and the trap closes as the plant tissue relaxes."
The plant is thus capable of "distinguishing" between prey and inedible debris according to whether more than one trigger hair is touched. The food selection process may not be perfect (because real food in the form of flies and spiders may be crawling all around the plant, but the fly trap may be closed shut over something useless such as a leaf or twig), but this simple strategy has allowed it to do without muscles or a brain, which are very costly organs and tissues to sustain.
The digesting process is also very remarkable. Once the trap fully closes, the leaves form an airtight seal through long hair-like projections known as cilia so that digestive fluids and insect parts are kept inside the trap and bacteria and molds cannot enter. The finger-like cilia create the awesome impression of spiny teeth that has captured the imagination of monster-plant story spinners, but they are really only used to keep the trap latched shut.
Sometimes, a trap does not close shut and as a result may suffer from a bacterial infection, rot and fall away. The venus fly trap can tolerate losing traps because it can eventually sprout new ones. However, beyond this, the venus fly trap is also capable of losing traps "strategically" through "planned obsolescence", and this is one of its most amazing characteristics to me. When a trap runs its course of about 10 to 12 closures, it loses the ability to capture anything. The leaves of a trap remain spread wide open and it then devotes all its energy to the process of photosynthesis for the remainder of its life span, usually around 2 to 3 months. This former trap thus no longer goes through the ritual of attracting insects and eating them. In a purely evolutionary sense, this is somewhat similar to how menopausal mammals contribute to their social groups. This way, if a trap is repeatedly stimulated by inedible objects either because it is incompetent or poorly located, the rest of the plant can recoup some of the energy and ATP lost on its inefficient trap and make it focus instead solely on photosynthesis.
Once the insect is firmly gripped by the trap, a process of digestion begins. The trap secretes acidic digestive juices that dissolve the soft tissues and cell membranes of the food, serve as an antiseptic to kill bacteria and enzymatically digest DNA, amino acids and other cellular molecules into small pieces that can be eventually ingested by the plant. The process continues until only the hard exoskeleton of the prey remains. Once the prey's nutrients are depleted, the plant reabsorbs the digestive fluid. This serves as a signal to reopen the trap, and the prey's remains are left behind. In natural conditions, wind and rain water helps to remove the remains but, indoors, I'll have to manually remove them for my plant.
As this is my maiden attempt, I'm not certain of my ability to keep my venus fly trap alive. But I'll give it a shot. Most plants hardly pique my interest but this high-maintenance creature certainly is a beauty!
Friday, 3 June 2011
Chinese Prayer
When I go to the chinese temple to pray, I usually experience a sensation of reverence. This is quite a recent and novel development, given how it was that only about four or so years ago I was anti-religion to some degree.
However, much of the awe and humility isn't so much because of the holiness and spirituality behind the religion and practice (although they do play a huge part still), but rather because of the fact that it belies a long-standing tradition. When I get on my knees, I am acknowledging that this practice arises from a philosophy and way of life that has sustained the lives of thousands of generations before me.
I find it virtually impossible not to pay my respects to that.
However, much of the awe and humility isn't so much because of the holiness and spirituality behind the religion and practice (although they do play a huge part still), but rather because of the fact that it belies a long-standing tradition. When I get on my knees, I am acknowledging that this practice arises from a philosophy and way of life that has sustained the lives of thousands of generations before me.
I find it virtually impossible not to pay my respects to that.
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