Crime and Punishment

Last Friday, I visited a German friend who had been a German language teacher in Penang in the last 10 years. Those 10 years saw her using an environmentally mode of transportation around Penang - a bicycle made for 1. 10 years went by with annoyances big and small albeit without major incident until 1 month before going back to Germany for good. After many near misses, she had her farewell encast with the most prominent features of Malaysian life - hurried motorists with harried minds and kiasu mentality. Suffering a broken leg, she sits in her front porch eagerly welcoming visitors. She might as well be watching a drama on a TV she doesn't own, for the day before, right in front of her, her German friend had her handbag snatched by 2 motorists pretending to be asking for directions. (Which, ought to raise a red flag, considering the fact that the lady had just alighted and it was a quiet neighborhood).

It has become a weekly affair to hear of snatch thefts victims among the expat families in Penang. Instead of the usual, "Why are people getting worse these days" question, I asked myself, "What's the difference between the people who will and who will not commit a crime, any crime."

I might sound a little fatalistic when I say that all crime is motivated by the dualistic element of incentives and punishments. I remember in one class where we had a topic about whether crime pays, I had said that none of us are as moral as we'd like to think. What becomes our moral yardstick is the programming we had growing up. Morality is not some innate thing which makes us more superior or righteous than another 'outright criminal'. Some people insist they will never steal, cheat, rob........ the way I used to insist that I would never resort to abortion or prostitution. Which is not to say I have, but the reason I haven't has little or nothing to do with a perceived standard of morality.

My motivations based on the scales of incentives/punishments just never reached a tipping scale where I had to resort to crime. I grew up in a society where there was genuine economic activity and I was raised in a family where everyone could read and write and where my father and the grandfather who raised him were professionals. From an early age, I had always had options to obtain gainful employment. And since I am a fairly educated, independent woman not bound mercilessly by the shackles of tradition and narrow-minded society, I had the education to be aware about sexual activity and its risk, as well as the ability to raise a child that would be conceived through any relationships. Not only do I know what I'm doing, I'm capable of figuring a way towards upwards mobility.

And if all these options which are products of my programming were not available to me, the probability of me being a crime statistic is about the same as anyone who's already made it into this year's index.

All of us tend to have a misplaced sense of righteousness about ourselves. That explains the incessant complaining and whining about crime and people who are more 'evil' than we are. The reason they are labelled 'evil' or 'criminal' is simply because we have another label where we are 'superior' and 'righteous'. It is the burden of the haves to take on an aware and engaged sense of social responsibility - and it is because of the "I take care of me" mentality those who have subscribe to which lends to the deterioration of society. All of us are comfortable in our jobs, meeting mortgages and loans and rent and bills and all the other activities that's making the world go round. We never think about the implications of the social and economic cocoon we live in, benefit from and the pedestal of moral righteousness we place ourselves on.

Why should we anyway....it's too inconvenient to care about anyone once we've labelled them "evil" and "criminal". The fact that people are "stupid", "criminal" and "evil" automatically negates our civic responsibility to look into the ways we could have created equitable treatment of all members of our society.

Given, there are simply those people with massive egos who think the world owes them a living - these are the grey-criminals, the leeches and parasites who also label themselves a class better than outright criminals. We cannot always justify someone's criminal act by saying it is the comple responsibility of society, eventhough I believe, a lot of the time, crime is a symptom of the inequality and decay in society and not the cause of.

Do I look like the kind of person with a plan?

Plans sound like great things to do when you are a Business/Marketing/Management student. They tell you, failing to plan is planning to fail. But have we asked on what yardstick are they measuring failure?

The symptoms of why we're so fucked now in our world is because we have not evolved - we think with all our technology and cleverness and knowledge explosion, we have become pedigreed versions of the human race. But pedigree or not, the shit stinks the same. We're accelerating and burning rubber with no brakes and no sensibility in direction. We're headed for a crash.

Just because we've evolved technologically doesn't really make us smarter, better. And that's where the problem is - we think we're smarter and better, and so we deserve MORE, more and MORE of this and that and everything else. We consider ourselves civilised and advanced when only one side of our humanity progressed - the technological side. The spiritual side has been relegated to less than a sideshow; the scientific community, which is essentially on the payroll of Businesses and corporations, has reduced the place of spirituality to that of a freakshow.

The cleverness in us grows and multiplies while our intelligence is diminished. Is that what we call, progress?

Plans and more plans is the vocabulary of the insatiable world of business. There are always plans. Even wanting to do good needs a plan. We're so used to the idea of having plans and ideas that we have reduced ourselves to machines that can only operate within the scope of an operating manual - the Plan.

When asked by '2-face' maverick DA what his plan was, the Joker replied, "Do I look like a guy with a plan?" Do you see from this, the virtue of someone without a plan? It is someone who does something for the sake of doing it, not really because it is part of a process or a plan for something else, some bigger pay-off or benefit. When a person has an ability to do something for the sake of doing it and for the mere purpose of believing in what they are doing, the intensity of the creative power to achieve something is incredible. That is the power of not having a plan. It frees you from the crippling fear that projected expectations tends to weigh down on you. To have a plan means to operate within a fixed context - sterile ground for the quantum power of creativity.

A person without a plan is a person who has not set themselves up for something they will potentially lose. They are free from the fear of failing and free from the judgment they face from themselves and others from 'not fulfilling the plan'. The person without a plan simple "is", simply "to be" and allows themselves to be carried by the creative energy within, riding the state of flux we are all in. Perhaps that's what Eckart Tolle means in his "The Power of Now" - to be able to do something for the sake of doing it and not as a pre-emptive measure or projected gain.

I am a person with many plans, and thankfully, 99 out of a 100 fail because I never see to them. It makes me feel like a failure; a clever and talented person with so much potential and never being able to realize them. But that's only because I had a projected expectation of the material rewards of the 99 other plans. I say thankfully because the proliferation of my other 99 plans spins around me a web of material, tangible benefits which cocoons me from the more important thing I'm after - ethereal realia. I'll keep my mind the way it is - a mind that is able to generate 100 ideas, instead of a mind that is dulled by the material pursuits of the 99 plans.

Having plans really holds me back from what I can really be. Plans for holidays and trips. Saving plans, insurance plans, investments plans. All those keep me present in the future or anywhere else except now. All those things rob me of the ability to enjoy the intensity of the living, present moment. Mortgage plans keep me rooted in my commuting routes, or worse, in a particular neighborhood. Planning to pay off a car keeps me anxious about being able to make repayments. Planning for Thea's education makes me anxious about whether what she's doing now will be able to provide for that future 'education'. Planning for my own further education invalidates the everyday learning I'm doing and makes me think that I am incapable of discovering the knowledge and experiences an undergraduate/graduate programme will provide.

The idea that we cannot live our life without a plan is a product of the traditions and conditioning we're accustomed to. The idea was once an idea of some other authority. When people stick to plans, the masses become more predictable. It makes the jobs of social analysts and psychologists much easier when humans feel falsely secure in routines and patterns. It makes them easier to sell to - it makes it easier to figure out how to cream that 'mindshare' we have. Brillian, actually. But is that all you are? A commodity that helps big businesses and corporations grow and profit materially? Isn't the destruction of intelligence and creativity and our own humanity a price too high to pay for this social experiment?

When watching movies like I-robot and Eagle Eye, it reminds one that there is something computers (and clever analysts and psychologists who key in data to these computers) cannot extrapolate, plot and predict : the human element. The unpredictability of the human makes them human. People always say I am unpredictable; like that is a really bad thing. It is a really bad thing; because it is that one anomaly that really breaks the pattern, whatever pattern you've been working hard to build. But to be unpredictable, to not be a pattern or an anti-pattern, to not conform, is to be Free. And to be free is to be fresh. To be controlled and regulated is to become dull and mechanical. That is not being human.

I planned to go back 3 hours ago...and I also planned to do a lot of other things. The best things in my life happened without a definite, clear plan. In place of a plan, I had a dream. And when my dreams come true, I'd like to say it as if I had known all along, "My plan worked!". - The Halo Effect :)

Sloane, Alone.

Many, many years ago, in a Bahasa Malaysia SPM tuition class, the Cikgu noticed this person you shall now know as the author of this piece, always sitting alone. Well, to this person, tuition classes 2 months before your SPM is an emergency guilt-insurance you take out, in case you really did as badly as your forecast results, well, foretell. I didn't notice the significance of what the Cikgu noticed - that I am a lone ranger. Later on in life, I have been 'labelled' other things; the peg that will eventually find its hole, spinning on the same axis but in the opposite direction, a free-spirit.....They were trying to sound positive, of course. 

Being so connected with the cause, pains and hopes of others while liberatingly alone has been a feature up til now. And it doesn't look like it's going to change. I will in the end,  belong in a club specifically for people who thrive being without associations. A few posts ago, I deliberated about why I do not belong, not even when my current profession allows me to be a member of a proliferating association. I cannot do any of the things I do best and delivering it to the masses without belonging to a group - I cannot write screenplays, songs, act, sing and gain some degree of popularity condusive to earning an honest living, without actually belonging to some troupe or other. I cannot preach at a pulpit, be a published columnist or an online community.....not cannot, would not. 

And now I know why. I thought it was me all along, me and my brand of stubborness. As a child, I often consoled myself that 'Some day, my fit will come'. But I'm not the weirdo. The others are. For how can any of us function as original versions of our selfs if we have to constantly abide by the rules and conformity of others?

I know now that people join groups and associations not so much because they want to help, but because they're unsure about what they're supposed to do. They're looking for validation and confirmation, mostly. There are always the few, the pioneers, especially, with the noble intentions of spreading a cause, creating a platform. But within a generation, the order of the day deteriorates on its own. 

Freshness of mind and action upsets the equilibrium in group dynamics. I am not advocating solitary confinement. I am saying that I understand now that me being alone was necessary for my freshness in thought, my originality. We are all products of programming. Yet, the less programming and the more original thought, the better. And thanks to a lifetime of unconformity, I withstood quite a lot of programming and the liabilities that programming can cause in a person's choices in life. I did not conform to infatuation-laced nor tradition bound marriage, the stereotype of the single mother, the stereotype of the orphan, the teacher, the rebel, the Muslim, the non-Christian, the Buddhist, the this or that. 

I have no form. I have no spiritual or creative form. Long ago, I asked God if He would be angry at me if I chose only a way of Life that encompasses the things I find logical and helpful and which I understand and excluse the traditions which would require me to know only the labels but not the thing itself. I said He could strike me dead anytime soon or take away the gifts that He knew I most cherished - my ability to love and be kind, and my ability with words. I offered them up to Him if He is a God which requires obedience and not thought. I said, because I loved Him and the Life He has given me, so much, I am willing to take my chances, Heaven or Hell, and I will still Love him there. 

During those times, I had a strange dream. I was in a sort of Western town, in the first floor of a building, by a window. The moon was bright. Several buildings were aflame. A group of religious fanatics were going around scouting for non-Muslims to murder or force a confession from. The full moon cast a bright light through the window. They were approaching and soon will be upstairs. I told God I am keeping my promise - that I will have no religious form. The arabic words for "Allahuakbar" was suddenly cast like a shadow into the moonbeam, on the floor. There was nothing on the window. In the moonbeam were written those words. God told me, in His own way, that His presence in me and mine is His, is above anything a human can force out of me. They burst through the door......and I was invisible to them, they could only see the words, "Allahuakbar" on the floor in the moonlight through the window. 

Of course I don't believe I am some spiritual messenger. It is our subconscious showing us what we want to see. Divinity lies within ourselves. It is the divinity in me that gave me that dream. That is why anyone who is sympathetic to any cause will find themselves dreaming of that and making that a prophecy or sign. The only signs we're getting are the ones our own divinity is sending us. The fact that different people get different signs is because we believe in different things - and the fact that they are different does not matter. It is the love and conviction behind the need to believe that drives us to take whatever form that can help us get there.

But Form is a two-edged sword. It is like training wheels. There comes a time when you need to abandon the form without feeling angry towards it nor feeling like a traitor to it. The form is the material world's way of taking us where our subconscious wanted us to go. Our Divinity wanted us to go. When it's time to get off the trainers, we will find ourselves tripping over and being in conflict with our form. Time to get off the training wheels, take them off and getting back on the rest of the journey - without form. 

Actually, to be a lone ranger is in itself another version of a type of form, except that it is a less restricting form. I know I will be branded an eccentric sooner or later. A question I've always wanted to know is - are the people we call crazy really crazy, or is it the rest of us that lives in our own lunacy? I suppose I will be able to find out in this lifetime. 

From where I'm standing right now, it is the rest of humanity that is crazy. They plunder and destroy and find this and that disgusting as long as they get a sanitized view of the really disgusting things. They complain over the same things they created for themselves. If only they stopped and listened - every single human in the most destructive civilisations, stopped their patterns for a week - the skies would clear like it did the week Beijing hosted the Olympics.....we could hear the birds and smell sweet scents. We would find the beauty in nature and our loved ones. We will see the beauty and coolness of water or the qualities of a rock or life-giving soil. 

When you come up with a few novel ideas for life or things, people call you smart, a genius. They applaud you. Then you come up with more, they think you're a maverick, then a revolutionary. And from a line in The Dark Knight, you either die a hero, or you live long enough to become a villain. In our case, an eccentric, or branded a lunatic.

That is the price we pay for not deteriorating like the rest of humankind. As you move further and further up the top in any evolution or hierarchy, the view gets better and clearer, you can see further, it becomes quieter and then.....you finally realize, you're all alone.

It seem that the road to salvation does not lie in group hugs, associations nor states and religions. It lies in being able to shed the layers of conformity heaped on by collective order. There is a difference that is often overlooked when talking about non-partisan views. We live in a world so used to the doctrine of solidarity and its definitions that we do not think other forms of collective can exist and be, in fact, even more effective. 

There is another form of collective - the Collective Consciousness, which does not rely on conformity and associations. Like a powerful legendary Pokemon, each entity can function on its own but finds SYNERGY through the same frequency. They do not set out to gain an advantage by having a structure or team but come equipped with the same awareness and knowledge that each is able to decide on a course of action for each one of themselves which they can collectively act upon without conflict arising or egos obstructing. 

Being alone doesn't mean I am anti-social............I need to keep my thoughts original and fresh, for only then do I have the strength of conviction and passion for my purpose. I will not be as much confused whether those convictions were mostly mine or mostly inherited, dictated, instructed, obliged. I will not face that conflict once I'm deeper into my involvement with mankind. I am alone not because I hate society or am against the status quo for the sake of rebellion - I do not conform because the only way to get out of the mess we're in is to be able to explore the options outside of the systems that had entrapped us. 

Arising from destruction - Part 2

I just ordered a McDonald's. Because of such an act as a consumer, I contributed to the existence of this destructive corporation. McDonald's is destructive because it deliberately pays very low wages in a country without minimum wage so that their franchisers can gain obscene profits. We know the equation. The cost of me sitting here writing is not in terms of hours and electricity. The fact that I did not prepare in advance made me choose between breaking the creative flow or ordering delivery. If only they had local-food delivery. Why can't the creative forces also set up a catering service that charges $3 for delivery? At least I'll be getting fresh food, vegetarian even maybe, instead of this junk I'm eating now just to keep my sugar level up. There are other costs to me writing apart from the physical, mental energy, the costs of physical instruments to facilitate writing (space, electricity, internet)...........I'm spending precious time away from Thea.

I might very well one day, when Thea is old enough to want to go by another last name, go around begging for alms so that I may write my brains out and spend non-writing hours meditating under a hundred year old tree. It's true that we need money to eat - and since I have no land nor talent to cultivate my own food, I must cultivate simple tastes and the humility to be able to beg for food so that I will not be thwarted from being the vessel to deliver this burning desire to write. 

When imagining this scenario, I remember how in my younger days, I was thwarted from pursuing writing because I was afraid I would go hungry. I was afraid I would not have a home, a car, a calling card, a job title, etc etc. But I'm giving myself only a few more years to live. The things I will not be able to bring with me, I will not accumulate. Only my deeds and my loves will gain my devotion. 

It's not so easy for the next person to say, "I'm going to quit delivering meals for McD's and go and find the purpose of my life." And in acknowledging that, we acknowledge that the problems of our destruction lies in the hands of, not so much our unwillingness, but our unconsciousness to let go of our illussions.  If there is only one thing I can do before I die (apart from making sure Thea grows up to be a braver and greater warrior than I) is to be able to leave behind a series of materials which will help people to wake up to themselves, to shed away the layers of fear which bred that thick crust of conformity that is shackling them to those destructive forces and uprooting them from their dreams. 

Whether or not you call it 'fortune', I have arrived, halfway through life, at a point where the choices I had made have helped me make more and more of the sort of choices I would like to have. At 32, I am not overly-concerned about my maternal options, nor mortgages and loans of things I don't need. I don't have parents whose expectations I have to live up to. I am not intoxicated  by romantic and sexual inclinations which would make me overly concerned with love and/or sex. I have no 'career' nor any of the titles and entitlements which would traditionally oblige me otherwise. I understand that it took me 32  years of struggle to arrive at this point of freedom, the same way it took others X-number of years to arrive at their own version of their freedoms and entrapments. We are, ultimately, the product of the choices we have made. And it is never too late to start choosing....except that it gets harder psychologically, because we're more deeply encrusted in our own make-believe realities. 

How many others will be able to see 'reality' as it is and start informing themselves in ways that will help them create the new world? How many can arise from destruction in this lifetime? To arise from the monotony that besets our own deterioration and ultimately, contribute to this destruction we're in?

If there is one thing I am going to do before I leave this life - it is to help as many people find in themselves the ability to see through the smokescreen and arise from their own destruction. 

The beginning of our own destruction - part 1

All of us, well,...at least the ones that really matter when it comes to making a fucking mess of this world - conform to a set of rules to living. This conformity fucks ourselves over and over again and we get up and do it a different pattern but the same way. No wonder history repeats itself. 

I don't know why I'm so angry. I shouldn't be. But well, to know the name of a thing and to know the thing itself is a different thing, isn't it? I know why I shouldn't be angry - because it is not their fault that they are so caught up in their petty little existence, glorifying their own morality and misplaced sense of righteousness. I know that we cannot be angry with a blind man that hit us with his walking stick because it's our fault for being in the way or not giving way. I have the name of the thing - the explanation - about why it's not necessary to get worked up. But I have not fully internalised the meaning of forgiving for they know not what they are doing. 

I have all these people I know and care about and  we're supposedly to help make this world a better place. But what I see, left, right, centre...online and offline, in Asia and across the oceans, are people who do nothing but complain and complain and complain. They complain about money they don't have, the state of life, the government, the economy, so on and so on. When is my turn to complain? The one thing that brings me back to earth is my inability to control my urge to complain about their complaining. 

It is so damn fucking easy to just look at the things that we have drawn around ourselves to define our life and to see how these self-created illussions are entrapping us with false expectations and pursuits. No one sits back and questions whether the viewpoint that we're supposed to have a brick home, electricity, amenities and furnishings, car, insurance, a certain lifestyle, schooling, etc even begins to define life. If it doesn't, why spend so many waking and sleepless hours upholding that reality?

We create all these illussions that make us think we have so much to lose - imagine that, losing illussions! We hallucinate about our own self-importance, our own status and prestige, our cleverness and talents, looks and tastes. All that is worth less than shit - at least with shit it becomes fertiliser. 

You know, people used to live in caves and made mudhouses. In fact, I'm sure you've heard about nomadic tribes. They don't even own a brick house with running water and electricity and I don't think that has yet become one of their ultimate goals in life. It's convenient, sure, but we don't suddenly vanish into thin air and become nothing if we don't own it. And even if we do own them, an earthquake and a tsunami can come a throttling and pretty much make them vanish into thin air. Nowadays, a businessman gloats over a piece of land he's just bought. But God never made us sign leases. The entirety of the things we take for granted as 'reality' is a system of man-made devices, ideas that disproportionately benefit the creative directors and unfairly inherited as an advantage. 

The realities of the feudal-system landowners are as significant today as they have been before. It is the claiming of resources and assignment of privileges, unfair distribution of wealth and resources and surrender to authorities that create rules and systems that keep this balance in place. Modern day society is deeply immersed in this hierarchy and are active, sedated participants of the systems that oppress them. 

How stupid humans are. We surrender our authority to modern landowners; banks with their mortgages and loans and we surrender our mindshare to advertisers who are spindoctors of illussions that feed off our greed, lust and desire. 

The entirety of the world's problems throughout history can be simplified into one thing : The surrender of ourselves to another authority. This other authority creates ideas, systems, laws, political ideologies, philosophies, religions, which we subscribe to one or the other,  but they all do the same thing; exploit and make use of our willingness to surrender to authority by dictating to us and making us dance according to their mix of incentives and punishments. 

Conformity is the ultimate show of our surrender. We conform to our class in society, to our traditions and religions. We conform to schooling so that we can continue to conform to the very evil of 'getting a job'. (Why on earth would anyone's ultimate goal in life is to work on a job?). Conforming to the need to 'get a job' facilitates the other systems - mortgages, loans, exploitative corporations and the highly complex and intoxicating consumer culture. I can hear the instant argument of, "What are we going to feed ourselves with if we don't have a job?". That is proof of the powerful conditioning of these systems and their destructive powers to quash a person's quest for the meaning and purpose of his life. 

For most of history, ...in fact, we only have to look at the Amish community, people did not 'need' a job to 'feed' themselves. They did not allow greedy corporations to facilitate business models that took away land which was meant for food to be polluted in a thousand ways through cattle grazing or indiscriminate dumping of waste. If we are serious in addressing 'reality', we can completely replace the current model of economies and businesses with sustainable ones. A job is not a job unless the big boss decides it is a job. And if nobody is willing to work for a company whose enterprise contributes to the destruction of free air, water and land and its beauty, there will be no company. 

But why do people take up these jobs? "For money". And why the need to have this much money? Is there no other more creative and non-destructive manner to 'make money'? Let's just admit it - we don't want to risk a lot nor lose anything, we want convenience. We want to be sedated. We want to be comfortable. We want to be glorified. And corporations and systems take advantage of that very essence of our stupidity. Having a lot of things you cannot afford to be without is a big weakness. Any mafia understands that. Therefore, it also makes it true that the person who has nothing to lose is a very dangerous person - dangerous to any organization and system of systems. 

The sooner we all wake up and own up to our own weaknesses and reclaim back our unconditional surrender to authority, take responsibility for every single choice in our life the sooner we start saving the world. 

Think about it for a moment. All those corporations and governments and systems you complain about is a product of the people willing to work for them. And the incentives for those people who work for them is a fatter paycheck...and the paychecks keep getting fatter until it is enough to buy their conformity. And why do these people sell out? Because people like you glorify their law and engineering degrees and manufacture a collective belief in the superficial value of material things that they can now own to validate themselves in your eyes.All of us want to glorify ourselves. That is exactly what we do when we glorify others. Because if we dont support such a show of glorification, who will be around to glorify us when it's our turn? For that reason, I will always avoid graduation ceremonies, medals and awards of achievements, my own wedding and anything that reeks of self-glorification or glorification of others. 

All of you believe that there is no other costs behind the material things which glorify members of our society; the expensive suits, cars and real-estate. Take for instance, the doctors and pharmaceutical salespeople and people in the medical health insurance industry who have helped create a reality that is the American health system. That 'reality' is not a reality in the rest of the world. But it is a reality that will allow a few to further exploit and bend a whole lot more people to their will because they have to 'pay for a reality, medical bills.'

Surrender to an authority/system/tradition breeds a collective conformity that fuels the ambitions of the destructive forces. All systems that require surrender, that is headed by an authority will find in itself the seed for its own corruption and destruction, and along with them, the destruction of mankind and life on earth. 

Then how can we tell apart the teams of destructive and creative forces?

The creative forces do not require surrender of any kind. The creative forces lets you grow yourself through Love; by doing what you Love and which is your purpose in Life. The creative forces does not demand your loyalty nor asks you to sacrifice your principles. The Creative forces do  not require you to suspend judgment and logic or make you a victim of your own convictions. The creative force inspires camaraderie in you - for you all share a collective vision of Love and Hope. The creative forces fills you up so much inside and your contribution is your validation - and you do not need senseless consumerism to 

                                                                                                                               

The Bad Guys are only as bad as their bad logic.

I've always had this notion that if I hadn't curbed my enthusiasm, I'd be a cult leader, revolutioner of some kind, leader of a militia or criminal mastermind. But I've earned myself some liabilities - liabilities I call my anchors in the storm - things that will give me a reason to live and a reason to be patient, a reason to be sensitive, and an antidote to my ambition. There are no villains, just interpretations on which part of the story historians wrote. Thus, Che Guevera, Castro, Hitler....they are great people. 

The most beautiful thing is to have nothing to lose - when you have nothing to lose, or nothing worth losing you can pursue your ambitions with a single-mindedness and fuel it with a creative energy that can penetrate all those walls of doubt ordinary people waste their time defeating themselves over. 

We tend to view moral and virtue in such a dualistic manner. A person or an act is good or evil. We refuse to see the truth that it is incentives and motivations that tame or provoke the nature of unawakeness in us. If I were Hitler, I wouldn't view the killing of millions of Jews as the act of an evil man. Even if I were facing certain death, the objective view is that Hitler is a man of great vision and ambition and he understood psychology well. Is the life of a human over-rated? Hitler and all the bad guys in history probably understood one fact that the regular guy on earth never will - there are people who change the course of mankind and there are the rest, who simply eat, shit and complain. While we need them as labour for our economies and to generate wealth, to have too many of them is unnecessary. 

I profess to know nothing about Hitler but while the rest think this is a man fuelled with so much hatred and evil in him, he probably honestly believes he is doing the world a favour. And what gave Hitler so much potency? It is the regular conformist, the lover of rules and systems who surrender authority to others because they want a convenient life - he understands them well, the things they cherish so dearly which leaves them vulnerable to exploitation. He definitely doesn't feel intense negativity like hatred nor does he see himself in such a low-light that what he is doing is evil.

He is part of a vision of a group of people who understand their own existence better than the many they are about to annihilate. They attract more energy to their visions than negative emotions such as fear, doubt, hopelessness. They are driven by purpose and are ahead of the curve. But the 'evildoers' will always lose because there is one thing so powerful that it can trump everything else many fold - Love. The only thing evildoers lack is to have something or things that they love so much more than their own ambitions. And the one thing the good guys can always count on is the inspiration, creativity and energy that comes from the back of loving, from sensitivity. 

Loving a really good bad joker

I watched Dark Knight on dvd this morning. I couldn't really get my mind off it since watching it in the cinemas. A side of me that I have kept largely repressed in order to function and conform as much as I can to this charade called polite civilisation can relate on so many levels to The Joker. I think he cannot be more right on a lot of his philosophies towards life. Secretly, (well, not so secret now that I've got it written out on my blog) I could not agree with him more. 

Recently, I had a short and abrupt conversation with a friend about the state of civilisation destruction she thinks we're currently in. She believes the state of the world is getting worse and that there doesn't seem to be hope in the horizon.  I always sense her frustration and suspected that her optimism for humanity has been stretched too thinly over the decades. Whether or not her frustrations are a recent thing, I don't know. There is not one proper way to disagree on such a deeply personal and complex subject as one's opinion of the state of the world. 

First of all, we have to realize that none of us see the world as it is - unless you can claim to be a Glass Eye to the world and have perfect clarity which no doubt comes with divinity. - We see the world as who we are. If we are someone who has been frustrated, let down - then that is our worldview of the world as well. 

I am very optimistic about my country and the world at large. The way I see it, no point in time has the good guys had a playing field as level as now. Technology has taken away most of the bad guys' advantage of time and position. Today, for the first time, the good word, the inspirations, the morals and the stories can reach more literate people and to make believers out of people than any time in history. Today, TRUTH is given a fertile ground with the information revolution.

No doubt some are pessmistic and say that the evildoers have equal access to these technologies and weapons of mass proliferation of thoughts and ideas. But lest you ignore the fact, evildoers are enterprising people who, in all times thorughout history, will always be ahead of the curve in terms of psychology and technology of the times. The difference is that, today, there are enough literate people who can connect and form a more cohesive league of their own. No other time than now and the future has the odds look much  better for the good guys.

I was trying to tell my friend that the problem with most people (like her) who consider themselves do-gooders is that there seems to a false sense of superiority or worth they associate with themselves which sets them apart and above others. Just because we choose to do less harm does not make us better human beings. It just makes us less inhumane. And it is because of this false sense of "I'm the good guy", that people like my friend(s) have a false idea that things ought to be perfect and right at all times just because it is supposed to be so. Freedom is fought for and defended, not existing just because it is more convenient. 

I have a philosophy that the reason good guys lose is because we're always two steps behind. On top of that, we don't think like a criminal; we don't have a can-do attitude. A robber looks at a bank with its security and systems and the laws that spell out punishments for armed robbery and he doesn't say, "I can't do it...it's too hard. The walls are too thick, the guards are armed, the police will be on the scene in less than 5 minutes, it's too dangerous, the vault is reinforced..it's just impossible, I'll lose my job, my family, etc."

But that's exactly the sort of attitude most people have. They complain and complain about what other people are doing and not doing. They never think about what it would require them to risk if they wanted to change. They complain about a schooling system which they support by surrendering authority to the schools and teachers. They complain about having to work at a job they hate, stay in a relationship or family that's dysfunctional, so on and so forth. 

But the truth is this : Unlike the bank robber, none of you are willing to risk everything for something you believe you and those you love,  deserve. And as you believe, you create what you believe. So while we have a bunch of people wasting their energy complaining about things they conformed to without being held at gunpoint, the powers-that-be continue with the policies that keep all of you in place, spinning the wheel of life. 

Just imagine 2 robbers holding a room of 20 hostages. What's helping the good guys win? It is the fact that not a single person is willing to risk his or her life for others. If 20 kamikaze soldiers were in that room, those 2 robbers would not have a choice. Like hostage holders, the powers and the systems that are in place are meant to keep everybody in fear. Systems are not meant to benefit people; their very existence was meant to exploit. So there is no  use complaining because that was what a system was meant to do in the first place. 

The only way you're ever going to make this world a  better place is to understand that systems and authority were created, rules were created. Criminals don't play by the rules, which makes them very effective. They only play by the rules they draw up for themselves, a code of ethics, if you might call it, which aims to protect and enhance their functionality and efficiency in performing and delivering their purpose.