Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina, originally uploaded by Melinda.

Why are there "acts of God"?

So that we know of a God who acts.

"Acts of God" are not a punishment for people who sinned. For all people are sinners, there are none righteous.

And also not because some people in some parts of the world are greater sinners than others; for no sin is greater than another, and neither lesser too, but all sin are equally sinful.

God act, for people forget that it is God who is the Creator of all things.

We may plow the field, sow the seeds, but it is God who sent the rain and the sun at the right times to make the seed grow.

We strived to know so that we can better control the growth itself. We learn about climate and weather and biology and genetic science. We grow more and more in knowledge.

We know the best times and best places to plant, the best nutrient to feed the plants. We can now even engineer the best seeds for a particular geography and economic goal. We can tweaked a seed's genes to make it gives the best yields, the most resistance to pests, and the least tending, and so on.

But we still cannot make the rain fall and the sun shines as and when we want it.

Anyone who says that human knowledge will guarantees humankind certainty in all that we do, will be thought foolish.

And no man has yet caused any earthquake, or a hurrincane, or a tsunami, or a star to be born or die.

And yet we forget that what we do are only necessary for things to happen, but entirely insufficient.

Things happen only if God make them happen.

So "acts of God" is God speaking to the world that he is God.

And it is out of mercy that God keeps reminding the world that he is so.

That people die and people suffer lost are no argument that God is not merciful.

For all people die, one day. Only the manner, the timing, and one's readiness for it differ.

And people suffer lost everyday too at the hands of each other, but God is far kinder.

And David said ... "I am in a great strait: let us fall now into the hand of the LORD; for his mercies are great: and let me not fall into the hand of man."

[2 Sam 24:14]

On Thinking

Something so congruent with what I think and feel:

People do not like to think.
If one thinks, one must reach conclusions.
Conclusions are not always pleasant.

Helen Keller (1880 - 1968)

Self Belief and Self Delusion

I was watching Arsenal vs Fulham and I heard the commentator mentioned that Arsenal is playing with a greater self-belief.

That started me thinking.

The commentators could have said Arsenal is now playing with more confidence, but it seems self-belief is the popular thing to say.

Also I thought that self-belief is another popular wisdom, namely it is something people want to and like to believe, for it sounds good, encouraging and optimistic.

And self-belief is used only for someone that believes something positive about themselves, and not something negative.

For example, no one would say Fulham have self-belief that they are going to lose, which they did of course. The objective of the game is to win and to believe you will lose is self-defeating and not self-believing. That's the English language. But rationally speaking what’s wrong with believing you will lose if you have reasons to believe so?

My aversion to the popular notion of self belief is that it can be easily muddled to become self-delusion, i.e. think and believe you can do it and you can and will do it; think success and you will succeed.

I think this is a lie.

You may immediately react to this and reject me as negative and pessimistic.

But what I am saying is that if self-belief is mere unjustified and unsubstantiated belief about yourself and your abilities, then it is irrational, foolish and potential dangerous too.

On the other hand you should be confident, optimistic and bold when you know, or some reasons to believe, that you are able to do something and accomplish it successfully.

I am not objecting to self-belief per se but rather the reasons for so believing or the lack thereof.

But you may say you don’t need to have reasons you only need to feel so. Then I say again, by definition, such a state is irrational, and borders on the mystical, and gives no grounds for being confident, one way or another.

I then did some research on the Internet.

There are indeed the popular notions that I suspect are out there:

For example from here, we have this: "To achieve any goal in life, you must believe you are going to be successful. If you do not, you are likely to fail."

And from here, we have, "Approaching new goals or challenges with a healthy mindset is crucial to achieving the results you strive for."

On the other hand, there is a well-written and rational analysis of self-belief in Wikipedia, here. The notion of self-belief is refined by the concept of self-efficacy, i.e. the ability to accomplish a thing with one own self, or as defined in Wikipedia, as "people’s perception of their ability to plan and take action to reach a particular goal."

We can think of a 2x2 matrix, with accurate and inaccurate perception on one axis, and able and unable on the other side.

One obvious concern area in real life is of course when your self-perception is inaccurate. If you are able but perceived otherwise, then you are shortchanging yourself. On the other hand if you are unable but perceived you are, then you may jeopardized yourself, i.e. you may try to bite off something more than you can chew.

And the answer to attaining accurate perceptions is to have mirrors, mostly other people, people who know you and whose judgments you can trust, as in the do not have ulterior motives telling you what they see.

There is also a link to an academic study of perceptions of self-efficacies with culture by the Freie Universität Berlin. You may be surprised but it seems that the Japanese and the Hong Kong Chinese have the lowest sense of self-efficacy when compared to Western cultures. Maybe the problem is in the way self-efficacy is measured.

I have copied here the ten questions used to assess self-efficacy:

1. I can always manage to solve difficult problems if I try hard enough.

2. If someone opposes me, I can find means and ways to get what I want.

3. It is easy for me to stick to my aims and accomplish my goals.

4. I am confident that I could deal efficiently with unexpected events.

5. Thanks to my resourcefulness, I know how to handle unforeseen situations.

6. I can solve most problems if I invest the necessary effort.

7. I can remain calm when facing difficulties because I can rely on my coping abilities.

8. When I am confronted with a problem, I can usually find several solutions.

9. If I am in trouble, I can usually think of something to do.

10. No matter what comes my way, I'm usually able to handle it.

They sound very much like gut feelings and 'beliefs' about and ‘faith’ in yourself, i.e. the answers to these questions may not necessarily be reasonable or justified in your true abilities. For example you may say yes to the question that you can always get out of trouble, but in reality and in your historical track record it may not be so.

So it may be pseudo science after all.

But in any case self-perceptions of own abilities, or lack thereof, don’t really matter, unless there are some particular and desirable goal or goals to be reached. (Or when, because of your self-perceptions, you have no desire for some necessary and critical goals.)

And then it matters when there is a mismatch between your abilities, however perceived, and the desired goals. What these goals should be is another matter, but assuming that the goals are rightly desirable, then the question now is what do you do if you perceived yourself as inadequate to attain it on your own?

Then to persist by the sheer ‘self-belief’- either positively, i.e. I can do it no matter what, or negatively, i.e. I wont even think about it - is what self-delusion is all about.

Everything is Meaningless

There was a man
who wanted a thing badly for some time.
Then he got what he wanted.
But when he got it,
it was not what he wanted.
For what he had craved for, in his mind,
was different from what the real world is.

And then there was another man
who wanted a thing just as desperately.
But after some time
he forgot what he wanted,
and life still goes on,
without the thing he thought he cannot live without.
For what he thought, in his mind,
that he must have,
was not true.

And then there was the man
who rejected a good thing that was given to him.
He didnt seeked nor asked for this thing.
He didnt want this free thing
when it was given to him unexpectedly.
There can be many reasons why he didnt want it.
Maybe he have no need for the thing,
the good and bad thus being irrelevant.
Maybe he didnt know he needed that good thing.
But maybe he knew,
but he rather not have a good thing,
but prefers a bad thing instead.
He relished in his freedom
to choose the bad and to reject the good.

Then there was another man
who accepted the bad things that comes his way,
and did not reject them.
Again there can be many reasons.
He may not know it is a bad thing.
Or again he may have known,
but like the bad instead.
Or maybe he just cannot
or do not want to choose -
for reasons such as,
dont want to think,
no time,
takes too much effort, etc -
and takes whatever that comes his way,
good or bad.
So he may be tired of choosing
but rather just let "Nature takes its course".

So what we think we want,
may not be the thing we get,
no matter what we do;
and the things that we get,
no matter we seek them or not,
may not be the things we want.

And whether we know it or not,
we can seek bad desperately,
and reject the good given freely;
or we may think we seek and accept the good,
but what we get may be the bad instead.

So everything is meaningless.

----------------

"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."
Solomon, Eccl 1:2

On Wasting Time

Teck: Last night someone told me I was wasting my time in the chatroom.

Seng: So? What's new? I just had a terribly boring, utterly time-wasting meeting in the office today. So you tell me about time wasting.

Teck: I rather see it as an exchange: our time for money. And so no matter what we didnt waste our time.

Seng: But surely there are better things to do with our time, don't we?

Teck: Ya, but we cant do these better things without money can you?

Seng: If there are indeed better things to do. Anyway back to your chatroom, was it not ironic?

Teck: What do you mean?

Seng: Well wasn't he himself in the chatroom? Wasn't he wasting his own time too? If he really believed what he said, he should heed his own advice and never be around to chat with you.

Teck: No, not really.

Seng: How so?

Teck: Have you yourself not said that it is not what you do that matters, but rather why you do what you do. Different people have different reasons for being in the chatroom. It's your ends and means that determine whether you are wasting your time or not.

Seng: Well, well, since when have you thought and talked like this?

Teck: Since mixing around with the wrong company I suppose.

Seng: Ha! Ha! Ha! Well I am glad that at least you remembered some of the things I've said. I am also glad you are thinking more rationally and not just being emotionally reactive.

Teck: And you have to learn to be more emotionally reactive.

Seng: OK. Agreed. We are all deficient in one way or another. I need to mix around more with the right company then. So what then were your reasons - your ends and means - for being in the chatroom? Did you waste your time last night or not?

Teck: Was looking for fun.

Seng: And?

Teck: And had fun.

Seng: So?

Teck: So what?

Seng: So was it time well spent or time wasted?

Teck: I cannot say I wasted my time.

Seng: Hmmm. Then the means was effective. And that's how usually people assessed whether they are wasting their time or not: namely whether they get what they wanted, for the time and effort spent.

Teck: Yup.

Seng: But what of the ends? What makes spending time and effort pursuing one thing less wasteful than another thing? What makes doing this thing better than doing that thing?

Teck: There you go again. Thinking too much again. People just know what they want. They don't question them. When you are hungry you go look for food. You don't think about it.

Seng: It may well be so. But then we are more than mere animals. Humans are not just biological things, driven by instincts, or by our physiological wirings and our psychological makeup. We can and ought to be driven too by reasons and rationale, truth and beauty, hope and love, righteousness and justice, amongst other things.

Teck: Whatever. We have to eat we have to eat. You can't live on truth and beauty. Feed on love and fresh air and you will starve and die. And when you are dead and gone, righteousness and justice are irrelevant and meaningless.

Seng: Wow! You really have grown in your thoughts. It is a good argument and I will pursue it further. But immediately, tell me, did you really get what you wanted last night? Was the fun really fun?

Teck: You wont know if you never try.

Seng: But this is not the first time. You have tried many times in the past too. And you are still trying.

Teck: Yes, but that's all you have going for you: to try and try again.

Seng: I don't think that's the only way to look at it. The thing you seek may not be what you think it is, and you end up chasing after a mirage or an illusion.

Teck: Like mistaking a shadow for the real thing?

Seng: Yes, precisely. And we know you can never catch a shadow. You can try and try for all your life and you will get nothing. Such a chase is the ultimate time wasting: your entire life wasted in futility.

Teck: That was what we chatting last night too in the chatroom. I was telling him to give up waiting for the person who left him, and even now considers him an enemy. He is wasting his life away hoping that the person returns.

Seng: But what's the difference? He waits, and it is futile; you chase, and isn't it futile too? You are both wasting your time.

Teck: If you wait, nothing happens and nothing is changed. I act, and I am constantly creating chances, discovering new things, people and opportunities all the time. At least I have have hope that tomorrow can be a different day.

Seng: I still don't see the difference.

Teck: Why not?

Seng: Do you really think you are improving your chances for whatever you want by acting? And that by your inaction nothing changes? Surely the world don't wait for you to act to change. When I go to sleep at night, the other half of the world is full of events and activities, and when I wake up tomorrow, indeed the whole world is a changed world. And what you do may tantamounts to no more than chasing after the wind, and wont change an iota in the real world.

Teck: OK. OK. So we may be both after shadows. He waits for the shadow to come to him. I may be going after a shadow too. But how else can I know? By acting at least I may know better.

Seng: That is presuming he who waits does not know and have not learnt, and that you, on the other hand, have not learnt, and are willing to learn. But the lesson may already be available for the learning.

Teck: You are suggesting I am not learning?

Seng: Yes.

Teck: I have this thing against you.

Seng: What?

Teck: Why must you say things so unpleasantly and so negatively? Can't you say things differently and not make me feel so put down? Can't you say things positively and not make me feel hurt and to lower my self-esteem and confidence?

Seng: You rather I flatter you instead? I think it's a far grevious wrong - for both parties - to tell someone he is alright when he is not. Truth hurts because it was avoided in the first place, and truth hurts to wake you up from your delusion.

Teck: I know you are a stickler for truth and precision, but that's no reason for you to be rude and insensitive to others. What makes you think they want to hear you in the first place? And they may not be ready for it, and it does not help them to know it anyway. And then, when and if I want to know these truths, there are surely others more pleasant, who too can see and tell me the same things.

Seng: We are back to where we started. This is yet another instance of not what we do that matters but why we do it.

Teck: Ya, but you may have all the good intentions for me, but if I reject you, because I find you unpleasant, then all your good intentions comes to nothing, and you have wasted your time.

Seng: Can you not see beyond the superficial and the apparent, and know for sure what is real, which is silent and unseen? And again from what you just said, your values are very skewed and distorted. Do you think it is a fair trade, trading away what you called 'good intentions' for mere pleasantries? You rather someone be nice to you than true to you?

Teck: Hey this is a free market. I can choose. And I will choose the one who is nice and true.

Seng: So it seems. But that is just popular wisdom. And some people need experience - and to be able to learn from these - that popular wisdom is usually a fallacy. So then have you learnt anything from the real world? Is love really a free market? Can you shop and choose and trade yourself for someone to love you? Is this is fact of fiction?

Teck: I will soon know it.

Seng: Aren't you being presumptuous yourself here too? If you have to choose only between nice or true, how would you choose?

Teck: I am not interested in these hypothetical questions. I know what I want. Surely in the mass of people that I will meet in our lifetime there will be at least one who is nice and true. I just need to meet more people and more frequently. That's all to it.

Seng: And that you have been doing. But for how long? You may say you know when you have got what you want. If so, and assuming you know what you want, when will you call it a day, and say enough is enough? If you search for something, you too must know when to stop the search and accept that you cannot find it. And this may be either because it is not there, or you just cannot find it.

Teck: When I run out of resources - time and energy - or when some other substitute comes along. The substitutes may be imperfect but it is still closest at that moment to what I seek.

Seng: Like settling for polished shining iron, that will rust one day, instead of working to extract the gold from an ugly gold ore, but which will last forever?

Teck: I didn’t say that. Why should I reject an ore of gold? It is only that I have not found that nugget. And what makes you think that I am searching for anything at all in the first place?

Seng: I thought that it's you who is seeking for the one who is nice and true, and that you have to meet more people more often to achieve your goal. You didn’t say that?

Teck: If I am searching for the one nice and true. But for now I may not be searching, but only seeking fun. That's all.

Seng: And are you not wasting time then?

Teck: I have my fun. I don't ask questions I can’t answer. If there is something better and I do not know it, then it is moot to me. I can only see what’s best from what I know.

Seng: And from what you know fun is what is best for you?

Teck: Yes.

Seng: And that is why I say you are not learning, not because you are unable, but you are unwilling. Like you have said, you are not a child, and you are not an idiot.

But learning is only possible if you allow yourself to learn. And it is not like what you do in school, which is all head knowledge to be regurgitated in the exams. Rather learning is change and life changing. To learn you must be willing, and thus able, to see the world in different perspectives, and to act differently based on these new and fresh insights. If you don’t act it is as good as you not having learnt. And when you act you change.

You must be willing to accept facts, no matter how painful or 'rude' they may appear to you, and be disciplined to discriminate truths from falsehoods. Learning is not a one-way street, a filling of an empty vessel, but rather a two-way dynamic interaction between living entities, and the process changes both parties.

No amount of experience tantamount to anything if you are unwilling to learn. On the other hand, for someone already learning, he can even learn vicariously, ie from someone else' experiences. And that is how we learn from history.

But history repeats itself; because people are very prideful, such as thinking that they cannot be as dumb as their predecessors, or they prefer to hear what they want to hear, like they are free to choose, and refuses or are not willing to learn from it.

And so people experienced the same things over and over again, in continual futility. And it is just like you in your past, and in your present situation.

Every ONS is the same, the same emptiness, the same meaninglessness, and the same so-called fun. But yet you repeat it over and over again, refusing to acknowledge that no amount of sex or how skillful or fun it was, it can never be great sex. For sex is a shadow it is not the real thing. And sex is meaningful and great only with someone you love. And just holding hands with someone you love can be great sex too.

So if someone tells me he needs to try and try, and each time failing, I will be immediately suspicious that something fundamentally is amiss, and the real reason is to be looked for elsewhere and not in the trying.